A DIFFERENT CROKE Park experience for John Kiely, who has grown accustomed to this being the site of success for his Limerick team after they brilliant dominance over the past four seasons.

For the first time in five years they suffered defeat at the venue, Cork edging them out by two points to end Limerick’s reign of supremacy.

“The hurt is going to be god awful, I have no doubt, but it is what it is. We haven’t tasted defeat very often, but any time we have, it has tasted very sour.

“So we just have to go through that now, the group will reflect obviously, individually, collectively. There will be a lot of time for that. But listen, today is not for that consideration. I think that will take quite a bit of time.

“They’re very, very disappointed, obviously and again, it’s about opportunities.

“You want to give yourself opportunities today to win the game, but you’d love to get to the final to give yourself an opportunity as well.

“And we’ve lost that opportunity and sometimes it’s not about the winning, it’s about giving yourself an opportunity.”

Kiely hailed his players in defeat for their extraordinary run of consistency.

“Just immensely proud of the boys, immensely proud of all the people in the backroom team for the work they’ve put in over the last number of years and in particular this year.

“And I’ve no doubt, Limerick will regroup and come back in 2025, you know, refreshed and ready to go again. There’s no reason why they can’t. The group of guys that are inside in that dressing room are incredibly dedicated.

“They shape their world around hurling, where they choose to live, where they choose to work, where they choose to go to college, they have shaped their world around this group, this team. There’s an incredible togetherness and unity within the group and, they’re going to hurt now, there’s no doubt about that.

“We gave ourselves an opportunity to win it too. If we were beaten by 10 points, we’d say, right, okay, something’s wrong here. We could have won by two or three, but we didn’t and, you know, that that’s just the way it is.”

Kiely refused to use injuries this season as a main excuse for Limerick’s defeat, Barry Nash the main absentee for this game.

“Every player you lose is a loss, there is no doubt about that, but we have tremendous faith in the group as a whole. Seán Finn is a direct replacement for Barry Nash, how could you possibly regret having Seán Finn, you’d love to have him on the field any day of the week. So, we didn’t look at it like that.

“Barry has a hamstring injury, it wasn’t the worst hamstring injury in the world, he probably would have been able to play next week but he hadn’t gone through all the protocols in terms of a return to play.

“So if I go and bring him today, put him on for five minutes and he blows his hamstring out, what is Barry Nash going to think of me after that? So, we always do what is right for the welfare of the player and that was the right call.”