LIMERICK’S long unbeaten championship run was ended by Clare in front of a 30,460 attendance at the Gaelic Grounds last night.
The narrow 2-20 to 1-24 defeat was the first for the current All-Ireland and Munster champions since their All-Ireland semi-final loss to Kilkenny back in 2019, thus ending an unbeaten streak of 16 matches for Limerick
The Shannonside neighbours were tied on several occasions before a couple of late points from substitute Aron Shanagher pushed the Banner over the winning line.
In a quick summarisation, Limerick manager John Kiely said: “I think Clare brought a really excellent performance and it was always going to take an incredible performance to beat them on the night and we just fell narrowly short.”
“To be fair, both teams brought two excellent performances and it shouldn’t be necessarily about our performance as the performance of the opposition that we have to take on.”
“We have three weeks now until the next game to get our ducks in a row. We have to take this week possibly to refresh and get a bit of a break from it. Freshen up, come back and two weeks to the Tipp game (May 21, Thurles). That’s going to be a huge fixture now.”
Séamus Flanagan, in his 60th outing for the county, grabbed both goals for Limerick who held a 1-10 to 0-12 lead at the interval.
Limerick have fresh injury worries over Seán Finn and Cian Lynch, both of whom pulled-up with apparent hamstring issues.
Clare’s John Conlon (Clonlara) was awarded man-of-the-match. He was Best Man earlier at his brother Pa’s wedding, but sacrificed the reception to line-out at centre-back for the winners.
