Jack O'Connor felt his players looked rusty during Sunday's win over Limerick.

The Kingdom beat their Munster rivals at a canter, but manager O'Connor thinks the long lay-off did them no favours and believes they'll have to up it against Mayo in a few weeks' time:

"We played well enough in spurts but I thought we over-elaborated at times and that tends to happen when you try to embellish a performance. There were times when we looked a bit rusty too and that was always going to be a worry. Thankfully, we finished the game strong enough.

"But we are long enough in the game to know that the bar will be raised in three weeks, and that is what we have to get our heads around now.

"We were worried that not having played a game in a month, we would be a bit off it. It is just the scheduling and structure that drives managers mad. You know, you want to be playing games every two weeks. It is very hard for the lads mentally to be watching other teams playing games.

"I certainly haven't got the solution, but certainly four- and five-week gaps is not good at all. In 2009, our best performance came after we played five weekends in a row, up here in the quarter-final against Dublin, so there is no such thing as burn-out. Training burns you out, not matches." Tweet

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