John Kiely was left ruing a tally of 17 wides and a lack of consistency after his Limerick side was put to the sword by Galway in yesterday's Allianz Hurling League semi-final.
"Things just didn't happen for them out on the field there today. I can't put my finger on exactly why that was," he is quoted as saying in the Irish Independent.
"We put a lot of effort in over the last few weeks building up to this game. That is the challenge for Limerick hurling, to put successive performances together. That would have been a bit easier with a more mature bunch of players, but it is a challenge at the moment for this particular group. We are going to work on it in the next couple of weeks coming into the championship."
The Limerick manager continued: "We have a load of positives we can take from this. We are doing really well. We are disappointed with that performance, but it's one we won't be long putting to bed and leaving behind us.
"When you are playing against a side of that quality, playing that well, I don't think there is any shame in coming off having been beaten by 10 points, but at the same time we hit 17 wides. There were plenty of opportunities there for us to narrow that gap. With 15 minutes to go there was only three points in it."
Kiely admitted that the Treaty County struggled to cope with Galway's physicality.
"They are a really tough side to play against. They will chase you down, they will hold you up, they will turn you around, they will dispossess you. They will turn you over so many times and I guarantee our turnover rate is high. They have so many players on the field who are able to cover the ground and are physically strong. They are further down the road than we are.
"This is a team beaten by Tipperary by a point in the All-Ireland semi-final last year and they probably feel aggrieved that they didn't win an All-Ireland," he added.
Tweet