LIMERICK boss John Kiely expressed pride in his troops after they fell agonisingly short in their mission to become a Seven Domination Army by conquering Munster yet again.
Kiely’s side made history last year as the first team ever to claim the Mick Mackey Cup for six consecutive seasons.
But provincial supremacy is now Cork’s following a riveting final on Saturday night that was decided on penalties.
Barry Murphy, Tom Morrissey and Declan Hannon failed to convert their attempts in a shootout that concluded with Pat Ryan’s Rebels bagging their first Munster title since 2018.
Kiely lamented: “Penalties are penalties. There’s no dress-rehearsal for this. There’s no practising for this. It’s just put your best foot forward and you’re taking a shot on behalf of the group.
“It’s not on the lads. I thought Declan, Tom and Barry manfully put their hands up to take these penalties and as far as we’re concerned.
“It was our Limerick senior hurling team who lost rather than Barry, Declan or Tom – that’s for sure.”
For the first time in history, the outcome of a Championship final at Liam MacCarthy Cup level was settled by a penalty shootout.
The Limerick gaffer added: “I think everybody would agree it’s in normal play that a game should be finished. But listen, these are the rules, these are the procedures and we have to go with that.
“Fair play to Cork. They took the penalties when it came around.
“In fairness to Pat, Pat has done a fantastic job with that Cork team and to come down here and get a win is a serious achievement in a Munster final and we have to acknowledge that.”
Cork advanced to the All-Ireland semi-finals by becoming the first team to win a Munster decider in their opponents’ backyard since their 2006 crop did so against Tipperary.
For Limerick, a quarter-final on the weekend of June 21-22 is next.
Kiely said: “All told, I just have to be super proud of our lads. The effort they put in was just incredible. We’ve won six out of seven Munster finals. That record I think will stand a long time.
“We have a great record in extra-time. I thought we played exceptionally well. I thought we were a better team in extra-time.
“I think we created 14 scoring chances to their eight in extra-time, so I thought we had enough done to win the game in that extra-time period.
“That’s the end of the Munster Championship for us. I’m very, very happy with our performance levels right throughout the Munster Championship.
“We’ll reset, we’ll take a little breather now for the next few days and I’ve no doubt the men in that dressing room will regroup, dust themselves down and will really want to push forward now and be the very best that they can be in the remainder of this Championship.”
In the immediate aftermath of the game – which saw Cork’s Darragh Fitzgibbon force the penalty shootout by pointing a last-gasp ‘65 – Kiely felt it was ‘difficult to understand’ the amount of additional time played by referee James Owens.
The Wexford official stepped up from his role as line umpire in extra-time after Thomas Walsh went down with the cramp.
Kiely said: “We’ll have to go back and have a look at it and see exactly what were the major turning points. But there’s no doubt that Thomas Walsh getting injured had a big impact on the game.”
