LIMERICK will face Longford this Saturday night (Changed Throw in at 2pm in Longford) in the All Ireland Qualifiers without two of their star names. Both Tom Lee and Stephen Lavin will be unavailable to the Limerick management team due to travel commitments.
Lee, who recently returned from Australia to join the Limerick panel has headed for the USA, with a confirmed return date.
Lavin, who impressed against Waterford and Clare this season is headed for Croatia this week. It remains unclear as to whether Lavin will return should Limerick qualify for the next round.
The news comes as a blow to Limerick manager Maurice Horan who has already had to deal with the loss of John Galvin to the panel.
“The two lads leaving this week will be a big loss to us, but we should have a fit panel to choose from for this tough game”, commented Horan.
“Longford have only lost one game all season, so they are on a roll really. Away games in the championship are extremely tough to win and we know that after defeating Derry, Longford will not be fearing anyone” added the Limerick boss.
Indeed Longford’s 0-17 to 2-08 win over Derry was as impressive a performance as the Longford men have produced in recent years. Eleven points from the boot of Seán McCormack helped Glen Ryan’s men qualify for this stage of the championship having already lost out to Wexford in a Leinster Championship replay.
Limerick on the other hand have reached this stage of the competition on the back of a poor defeat to Clare. Maurice Horan’s men failed to get out of the blocks against Clare. The Limerick men once trailed by 10 points in that game.
“We know that our performances have to be better”, Horan conceded. “We need to put in a team performance for the full 70 minutes if we are to have any hope of getting a win this weekend. Our focus needs to be right and we need to make sure that the attitude is right from the get go. The defeat to Clare took a good while to get over, but training has been good and hopefully we can get the win these lads crave on Saturday night”
Limerick reached the quarter finals of the All Ireland last year having put together a good qualifier run. Horan feels that the same can be achieved this season.
“The qualifiers are all about momentum. We need to make sure we bring the second half performances from the Waterford and Clare game into this weekends clash. We need to play for the full 70 minutes”
Horan, who is in the second year of his two year spell with the Limerick footballers would not be drawn on his future.
“That is for another day to be honest. If I was to be thinking about anything else this week other than Longford, then I would not be doing my job.”
