LIMERICK fell to a second successive League defeat at the hands of Galway in the TUS Gaelic Grounds.
Defeat was Limerick’s lot on Saturday night as they were beaten 0-27 to 1-18 by Galway in the second round of the NHL.
The game swung in Galway’s favour as Gearoid Hegarty saw red after a schemozzle on the sideline. Limerick were one ahead at that stage but Galway outscored their hosts 0-16 to 0-9 from here.
Aaron Gillane got Limerick off to the perfect start, finding the back of the net within three minutes. further scores from Cathal O’Neill and Ronan Connolly had Limerick two clear at the half, 1-9 to 0-10.
Limerick were reduced to 14 men, early in the second half as Hegarty received his marching orders after a melee.
Galway’s numerical advantage took it’s toll late on as they found seven consecutive scores down the stretch to earn the 1-18 to 0-27 win.
In the wake of the contest, Limerick manager John Kiely alluded to the sending off of Hegarty which proved to be the turning point in the contest.
“Listen the melee was pity there was no need for it but there was so many bodies in there you know it was what it was and somebody was bound to get a bang. Regrettable, pity for Gearoid now it means he’s going to miss the next match but listen we will drive on.
“Its down to use you know we have the experience of being here before. It can be hard when we do come back to get up to where you want to be and at this moment we just aren’t there. We have to work really really hard to get back to up.”
Discussing the quality of the game, Kiely praised the effort of his side who were much improved from their loss to Wexford in round one.
“Yeah it was it was a great game of hurling for three quarters maybe from our perspective anyways. It was much improved performance than last week and that is what we were looking for. The lads worked really really hard, we used the ball much better we created scores and scoring chances much easier than we did last week. Our accuracy was much better.”
However, the Galbally native also spoke about what went wrong in the last quarter of the game as Limerick struggled with the numerical discrepancy.
“The last quarter you know it was disappointing from our perspective we just couldn’t maintain the intensity. We tried hard to get on the ball but we struggled to maintain possession, I suppose when the opposition have an extra man if your good at using the ball you’ll mind the ball that bit easier.”
Watch the interview with Kiely in full below.
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