Kiely furious as ‘abysmal’ collapse gifts Galway victory

BOTH the GAA and his players felt the wrath of Limerick manager John Kiely, as an “abysmal” second-half from the home side saw Galway win at the Gaelic Grounds.

After they led by a point at half-time, Limerick only hit five more scores, which vexed Kiely (pictured), and he also admitted he was put out by the lack of clarity from the GAA regarding the NHL’s rumoured restructuring.

What appeared to be a dead rubber suddenly took on great value as the teams battled to claim second place and the promotion that could follow if the top flight is increased to eight teams.

Limerick still meet Cork at Páirc Uí Rinn in the last eight, but finishing up the ninth-ranked team in the country gave Kiely little solace ahead of the revamp.

“If I hear that word restructured another time in the next six months it will be too often. I don’t know why the GAA didn’t come out and make a statement during the week as to whether it was or wasn’t,” he said.

“It had been mentioned in every forum, every newspaper. Why couldn’t they come out and just confirm it and let people know what they were actually playing for?

“But there is no excuse, we should have won that match. The performance was abysmal in the second-half and it has to be fixed, simple as that.”

For brief periods of this game Galway looked untouchable, as Joe Canning in the first-half and David Burke in the second ran up sizeable scores, but a far bigger test awaits next weekend in the quarter-final when meet Waterford.

“The way the fixtures fell for us, we knew today was going to be competitive. It gives us a taste of what’s to come,” said Galway boss Micheál Donoghue. “But at this stage you want to get into the knockout stages and get in as many games as you can. Whoever we are going to be playing, we are trying to stay in this competition as long as we can.” A bright start saw Limerick take a 0-7 to 0-3 lead after 15 minutes, but six unanswered points left Galway leading for the first time after half an hour. When Cian Lynch rattled the net and Shane Dowling hit a couple of quick points, though, Limerick deserved to lead 1-13 to 0-15 at half-time.

Galway hit the first four points after the break – all of which came from David Burke – and in the end Limerick couldn’t live with his movement and pace after his move to full-forward.