Dublin fully deserved shock victory, says Limerick boss Kiely

Limerick's Cathal O'Neill dejected after the defeat to Dublin ©INPHO/James Crombie

Limerick manager John Kiely offered no excuses after his side slipped to a shock defeat at the hands of Dublin in yesterday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final at Croke Park.

The capital men looked to be in trouble when they saw Chris Crummey red carded for a high challenge on Gearoid Hegarty a quarter of an hour into the contest.

However, they’d fight towards a 0-15 to 0-12 half-time lead before back-to-back goals from John Hetherton and Cian O’Sullivan helped get them over the line in a famous 2-24 to 0-28 victory which sees them into a semi-final showdown against Cork in two weeks.

Speaking to RTE Sport after his team’s defeat, Kiely said that Dublin deserved huge credit for pulling off a massive victory.

"Listen, I think it’s more about the Dublin performance than it is about ours, to be honest," he said. "They were super. Even at 14 men, you wouldn’t have missed the 15th man not being on the field being honest about it.

"Breaking ball, they were there, their aggression levels were brilliant, they were super in the tackle, they were accurate – they were just at a higher level of performance than us today.

"They deserved their win completely and hats off to Niall (Ó Ceallacháin, manager) and his team, they had them absolutely on the money. Congratulations to them."

The Treaty boss added: "Our energy levels were that bit down, I could see it after 10 minutes, I could feel it from the group after 10 minutes.

"It's hard to know why that is because everything we did for the last two weeks and this morning would have led us to be very happy with where we were in our preparations. Ultimately, I think it’s not about us today, it’s about Dublin."