'Big half-time talk' inspired Limerick - Diarmaid Byrnes

Diarmuid Byrnes said "it needed a big half-time talk" to inspire Limerick's second period demolition of Kilkenny in the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final at Croke Park.

The Cats were on top in the first 35 minutes as they took a three-point lead and had the better of Limerick in many facets of the game.

There may have been some regret at not establishing a bigger lead than 1-09 to 0-09, given the tradition of this Limerick team and their ability to fight back.

As expected, John Kiely's side came out firing, hitting 21 points to Kilkenny's 1-06 and clinching the four in-a-row.

Despite the 0-30 to 2-15 scoreline, Byrnes felt Kilkenny pushed the champions all the way.

He said: "Kilkenny brought exactly what we expected. It was pure intensity. We always speak of the Kilkenny teams of the past but they are a replica and have inherited it.

"That's in their DNA, to work hard and those lads have died in their boots. We needed a big talk at half-time to get us going second half. You could see the response in the second half, it was immense.

"That's the relentlessness of Kilkenny. They just don't go away. We got a good few scores second half. We enforced our game plan and what we were trying to do. You never switch off for them."

Peter Casey pointed to Limerick’s experience having been in this situation so many times before, emphatically putting away their opponents when at times they had been on the ropes earlier in the game.

Kilkenny had no answers once the Limerick juggernaut came on after the second goal.

Casey explained: "At half-time we weren't happy with our own puck outs and their puck outs. Kilkenny were that small bit more hungry than us in the breaking ball. I think we addressed that.

"We started the second half well and