‘You’ll never know what will happen’

points down and to go to Austin Stack Park, it’s an intimidating place to go,” he admits.

“Okay the scoreline was twelve points in the finish, 0-18 to 1-3, but look Limerick is in transition at both underage level and at senior level. The seniors are doing very well to be fair to them and all we want to do is progress.

“You’ll never know what will happen in a one-off game and I’d be hopeful that our guys could perform on the next night and then you never know what will happen.”

Limerick go into this game off the back of a hard-earned victory over Tipperary in the Munster quarter-final. For Limerick to have only scored seven points in the game might not seem overly impressive, but as O’Sullivan points out last Wednesday night wasn’t exactly conducive to free-flowing football.

“Conditions were absolutely brutal to be fair,” he explains. “There was driving wind and rain and we didn’t even know [where it was on]. It was supposed to be on in the Gaelic Grounds and it was changed at the eleventh hour then to Mick Neville [Rathkeale].

“The surface of the pitch was absolutely perfect, there was no hassle, but it was just the driving wind and rain. I suppose we adapted better to the conditions because we came out with the win, but we’re just delighted to be in a semi-final.”

Limerick will have in their ranks six players from last year’s semi-final – Barry Coleman, John Hayes, James Molyneaux, James Cummins, Brian Foley and Adam Shanagher – who will form the core of the side Kerry face in the Gaelic Grounds tonight.

“They’ll have the experience and you’d be hoping that they would help all the other guys then, that’s what we expected the last night and that’s what we’re going to expect the next night is that the guys with the experience will stand up because they know what to expect, but look we’re under no illusions,” he stresses.

“Kerry are Kerry and you know them and we know the threat they pose, but look it’s a one-off game and we’ll be going out to put up the best performance that we can and if that performance is good enough to get us over the line then great and if it’s not we’ll assess it after the game. We’re just looking forward to it to be fair.

“I’d like to instil it in them that it’s just another game, because that’s all it is to be fair. I know it’s Kerry that we’re playing, but look it’s a Munster semi-final. It’s a one-off game, it’s knock-out football, so you know I’d like to think that our lads are focussed enough to just go out and perform on the night and that’s all I’d be looking for is a good performance and once we get a good performance the results kind of take care of themselves.

“That’s always the way I look at games to be fair.”