THERE was a whopping spread of a dozen players on the scoresheet for Limerick in Saturday night’s routine defeat, 1-27 to 0-18, of Galway in the National Hurling League.
The more impressive of the scorers were exciting full-forward Shane O’Brien (1-3), Aaron Gillane (0-6) Cathal O’Neill (0-4), Aidan O’Connor (0-4), Barry Nash (0-2) and Peter Casey on his welcome return from injury.
O’Connor was selected as Man of the Match.
Sharper Limerick had this fixture in the bag at half-time, ahead 1-12 to 0-8.
Although Kiely’s side were not to score from play in the last quarter, the home outfit were clearly the far better team, against opponents who finished with 14 players following the sending off of Conor Cooney (0-6) not long after half-time.
Replacement Cathal Mannion also knocked over six points for the westerners.
That Galway failed to score a goal was down to a string of excellent saves by Shane Dowling.
Worryingly, Mike Casey, Kyle Hayes, and English were all injury casualties, and the trio are likely to be rested for next weekend’s trip to face Kilkenny at Nowlan Park.
It was Limerick’s first home defeat of Galway since 2020.
Limerick: Shane Dowling; Seán Finn, Mike Casey, Barry Murphy; Colin Coughlan (0-1), Kyle Hayes (0-1), Barry Nash (0-2); Adam English (0-1), William O’Donoghue; Cathal O’Neill (0-4), Cian Lynch, captain, (0-1), Tom Morrissey (0-2); Aaron Gillane (0-6) Shane O’Brien (1-3), Aidan O’Connor (0-4)
Substitutes: Vince Harrington, Peter Casey (0-1), Ethan Hurley, David Reidy (0-1), Gearóid Hegarty, Eddie Stokes.
