Kearns points to O'Riordan sending off as pivotal moment in another hard-luck story

Liam Kearns faced the media yesterday in the aftermath of a desperate disappointment. His Limerick team hadn't been as competitive as last year when they ran Kerry close in three knockout matches but for three quarters of this Munster semi-final it was anybody's call before the champions pulled away.

"Everybody dismissed us and said we hadn't a prayer," he asserted. "I'm happy from that point of view, but ultimately that's not good enough for us. We came up short again. It was lost in the second half.

"We lost midfield and they got a run at it there and we had a man sent off (Mark O'Riordan). That clinched it because you're not going to beat the All-Ireland champions with the wind at their backs and a man sent off. It's another hard-luck story, but we're fed up with them."

No one did more to inflict the hard luck than Colm Cooper. Kerry's main strike forward was lethal yesterday, shooting 2-5, but that wasn't the end of his contribution according to Kearns.

"He'd a man sent off from our side. I didn't see it and I'd like to see why my player was sent off because my players say he didn't do anything. Many teams have tried to curb him and many teams have failed. He's only had a point against us I think in three or four matches up to this so he was due to get loose and he did cut loose today.

"They only scored 1-1 in the first half today and in one of the matches last year. They're a star-studded team who are running up big scores against other teams so my lads are obviously doing something right."

He was asked the question he must have been dreading all week, the question that comes to managers every week. "Will you lift them for the qualifiers?"

"We'll be regrouped for the qualifiers. We have two weeks instead of one to prepare. If we could get over one round of the qualifiers maybe we could take it a bit further. But the Munster championship is the one we've been trying to win for a while now and we've come up short again."

There was, however, a finality to it all. Kearns after five years of chasing the holy grail of the county's first provincial success since 1890 acknowledged whereas he had led Limerick to the mountain top he personally would not see the promised land.

"Everyone wrote us off because we were relegated in the league, but we had an unbelievable injury-list. There's plenty of football in that team and I would hope that someone comes in instead of me and takes them that step further and gets them over that finishing line."

Jack O'Connor sorted out the useful from the disposable when assessing his team's afternoon. The pressure of defending an All-Ireland was nagging at him. "It was important we got a battle today and the way we were built up before that game was ridiculous. We have been touted as overwhelming favourites, which isn't reality at all because no one's managed to repeat this thing for the past 15 years. We'll have to up that performance if we're going to be able to handle Cork."

Still, it was a good day on the line with the second-half replacements more than paying their way and Dara Ó Cinnéide in particular making a mockery of his subdued form in training. "You move fellas around and hope it will work," mused O'Connor. "Some days it does; more days it doesn't. Dara Ó Cinnéide gave us a good aerial presence inside which we needed with the wind. We kicked longer ball in the second half and got a few scores out of it. But fair play to Limerick. They battled to the bitter end and I wish them the best of luck in the qualifiers. We didn't want a champagne performance. We wanted a battling performance."

His selector Ger O'Keeffe was blunter in his reaction. "We won't win a Munster final on that performance because the Cork midfield and forwards will be better than Limerick's. Fair dues to Limerick, but Cork are better than that. If we want to win All-Irelands they're the type of games we have to be playing.

"This was never going to be easy. It's like the Lions playing Otago. These guys have one game to play and they can raise it. We have to look at the bigger picture. We can't look at these games as once-off. Limerick can put all their eggs in the one basket. You have to fight that and if you're found in any way wanting, it's hard to get back into the game.

"But our resilience and experience and the changes we made in the second half made all the difference. They began to run out of steam in the middle of the second half, which also helped us to get on top. They wouldn't have the experience or probably the training we've built up on account of what we had to do for last year.

"Experience was what won it for us today because we weren't better than them in a lot of departments and are lucky to survive."