ON THE team’s arrival home to Colbert Station on Sunday night, talented Limerick midfielder Darragh O’Donovan joked that he felt Peter Casey would have been substituted at half time in Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final against Kilkenny.
“I was taking Peter Casey off at half time. I was looking around the dressing room and saying ‘Peter Casey probably needs to go’, and then second half Peter got going and got us into the groove,” he told a colourful Marty Morrissey.
Casey, however, kept his number 15 jersey and fired over some glorious second-half points in a Man of the Match performance.
In the immediate aftermath of Limerick’s annexation of a fourth All-Ireland title on the bounce, Casey told RTÉ: “At half-time we weren’t happy with our puck outs, their puck outs, Kilkenny, were that small bit hungrier than us on the breaking ball and we addressed that.”
“I actually think we started the second half well and Paddy Deegan’s goal was a sucker punch but, listen, we’ve been here before, we have loads of reference points. Just absolutely delighted to get the kick out of the boys after that.
“I think we got the next six or seven points after Paddy Deegan’s goal, which was huge to push on again.”
He continued: “It’s just the history we have, we’ve all grown up, we’ve had success at under-age, there have been times when we’ve had ups and downs in our careers and stuck together.
“Our half back line (Diarmaid Byrnes, Will O’Donoghue, and Kyle Hayes) is well over six-foot-three or so, it’s brilliant and a platform for us to kick on and try and get scores. It’s up to us then to try and do the damage.”
He added: “It’s about patience. We’ve all been here before and it’s about being patient as much as we can and hopefully they’ll come our way.”
