Moran: Limerick lack a squad depth a concern

Former Limerick hurler Niall Moran acknowledged that the All-Ireland champions' relative lack of strength in depth - compared to other dominant sides of the past - is a concern ahead of their three-in-a-row tilt.

John Kiely's side lost their third successive league game on Sunday, by the most emphatic margin yet as Cork, victims of a decisive defeat in last year's All-Ireland final, dispatched them by nine points in the TUS Gaelic Grounds.

The Limerick manager picked an experimental starting XV, with seven changes to the side which lost at home to Galway a fortnight ago.

With the hosts taking water at the break, trailing by 14, some of the more experienced heads were sent for, Diarmaid Byrnes, Aaron Gillane and Will O'Donoghue all arriving for the restart and triggering a mini revival in the second 35.

However, in Moran's estimation, the match highlighted Limerick's heavy reliance on their core starting group and the lack of depth underneath.

"I hurled with Limerick for a long time and my group were on the back of those kind of beatings quite often so I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and start slating fellas," Moran told Game On on RTÉ2fm.

"The fearful thing for Limerick is the gap between the 15-16 players who have carried Limerick to All-Ireland success over the last three or four years and the gap to the guys thereafter, there seems to a bit of a chasm.

"The longevity of the teams who have stayed at the top for seven, eight, nine years - the Kilkenny hurlers, the Dublin footballers - every year or second year, there's a couple of new guys who've come into the equation.

"The fear for Limerick is the guys who have started in last year's All-Ireland, I don't think any of them are under pressure for their place. That's not