John Kiely downplays injury worries as Limerick look to brush off Clare defeat

John Kiely has played down fears in relation to Cian Lynch’s hamstring injury, with the Limerick manager hoping to have the two-time Hurler of the Year available for their Munster SHC clash with Tipperary.

Kiely is also hopeful that Seán Finn’s knee injury will not turn out to be as bad as initially feared, though scan results will confirm the extent of the damage.

Both players were forced off injured during Limerick’s Munster SHC loss to Clare at the Gaelic Grounds last Saturday night.

“Cian has a minor hamstring injury, should be no more than a week or so,” said Kiely.

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“Seán Finn is going for a scan this afternoon [Tuesday], so hopefully we’ll have a clearer picture tomorrow [Wednesday]. Initial indications are that hopefully it is not too bad, but we won’t know for certain until we have the scan results.”

Clare’s victory over Limerick last weekend has really sparked the Munster SHC to life, but there is no sense of panic in the Treaty County dressingroom on the back of one defeat.

“We have our schedule made out months in advance,” added Kiely, who was speaking at the launch of The Dillon Quirke Foundation fundraising drive, in association with the Circet All-Ireland GAA Golf Challenge.

“Any tweaks that would happen after that would be only very minor tweaks. We are actually a group that really believe in our routines, we got after them.

“The result is the result, we won’t do anything different, whether it is a win or a loss, we’ll analyse the game the exact same way as we always would. We’ll report back to players and management the same way we always would, we’ll take the learnings from it, we’ll take the positives from it, and we’ll move on.”

Limerick, who beat Waterford in their opening fixture, now have a three-week break until they are out again – a trip to Thurles to face Tipperary on May 21st. And rather than pour over the remnants of the Clare game, the Limerick players have been given a break before turning their attention to Tipp.

“I’ve left the players off for a few days,” said Kiely. “There is no point I badgering them or going after them to find out what they thought about different bits and pieces. More important is that they get away and relax and do their recovery.

“In terms of the review of the game, that will all happen in the next couple of days. We’ll present it to the players and we’ll move on.

“The three weeks will fly. We’ll take a few days to refresh, then we’ll get back to the training ground and work hard again.”