John Kiely and Limerick dancing to a different tune

John Kiely didn't really need to be asked what Limerick winning a fourth consecutive All-Ireland titles meant to him.

The manager’s celebratory jig as he lifted Liam MacCarthy said it all.

"I would hope our body language at the end would tell you how much we were thrilled with the result," he told RTÉ Sport after his team beat Kilkenny 0-30 to 2-15 in Sunday's All-Ireland hurling final. "It feels absolutely fantastic.

"I really wanted this for the lads. They are an incredible bunch, they have worked so hard together and there’s never ever a night at training where these boys don’t deliver everything they had in the tank.

"You never know when you are going to get the chances again, you never get a chance like that anyway for certain."

This incredible fifth title in six seasons was the hardest won of all: a defeat in Munster, to Clare, that nearly kept them out of the provincial final, half-time deficits recovered in both the semi-final and final.

Not that you would know it from the final tally: Limerick are the only team to have scored 30 or more points in an All-Ireland final, another thing they have now done four times in a row.

"There were times during the course of the year where we were really under the cosh, and in some matches the games could have gone against us," Kiely said.

"In the round-robin in Munster there was a huge challenge brought our way and we kept battling away, we found a way to win those games or get a draw and get something out of them. I think once we got out of Munster it gave us that opportunity to go back and do a little bit of work and get a bit of freshness into us, and we got stronger from all those games really as we went on."

"We deliberately played into the Hill today to take on that breeze in the