HE IS KIELY MOTIVATED
Limerick boss warns men to brace themselves for a lot of hard work
BY
JOHN KIELY says his Limerick side will have to embrace a heavy training schedule during the Allianz Hurling League to make up “a lot of hard yards”.
The All-ireland champions lost some ground in their January preparations with the triple postponement of their Munster Hurling League meeting with Cork.
Fog, a frozen pitch then a waterlogged pitch saw the match eventually cancelled, and also ruled out a potential final against Waterford for the victors.
It left the Treaty men lacking game-time as they lost to Tipperary by 3-27 to 1-20 in the Dillon Quirke Foundation challenge match at Semple Stadium on Sunday.
“We would have loved to have had more game-time in January,” said Kiely.
“But the weather is the weather and January is January so we just have to take it on the chin and move on.
“We really needed the game. You could see that from us. We’re not sharp. We’ve a lot of work to do.
“We’re only a couple of weeks into our pre-season at this stage but clearly Tipp are further along their road of preparation than we are.
“For us, it’s back to the grindstone on Tuesday night. We’ve a lot of hard yards to make up.”
They will, Kiely
(inset) insists, be taking the defence of their League title seriously as they begin their campaign against Antrim next
Sunday.
But it won’t be at the expense of the training load required to get his side in peak condition for later in the year.
“We want to win every game we play, no matter what competition it’s in. That’ll never change.
“The emphasis will clearly be on working hard right the way through it. We can’t take the foot off the pedal in terms of our preparations.
“There’ll be a lot of hard work to be done and we’ll probably use a broad depth of panel in order to try and get fellas through the campaign at the same time.”
Of his All-ireland-winning first 15, only Dan Morrissey, Gearóid Hegarty, and David Reidy have been among the 32 players who saw action against either Clare or Tipp in January.
Kiely has been keeping an eye on the future with his selections and won’t be hurried into trimming his squad.
“We’ve a lot of players on board. You saw a lot of new names out there. At the minute, they’re trying to put their hand up and be included on the panel going forward.
“I’ve no particular date set yet for when we’re going to tidy it up but there’ll be another couple of weeks in it at least.”