‘Fear can’t be your motivator’ – John Kiely’s Limerick not holding back in training despite injury list
Limerick manager John Kiely
There will be no element of holding back in Limerick hurling training despite a growing injury list for the All-Ireland five-in-a-row chasers, according to Treaty boss John Kiely.
Limerick will be without the Casey brothers, Mike and Peter, for their Munster SHC trip to Cork on Saturday night, with the latter set to miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on a freak ankle injury.
That came in their recent round-robin victory over Tipperary while his older brother Mike is going to be “another little while” on the sidelines as he recovers from a hamstring injury.
The Na Piarsaigh defender picked up that knock in the early minutes of their opening round win against Clare with the 28-year-old expected to return to action at the end of this month.
Darragh O'Donovan, a two-time All-Star midfielder, hasn't featured since picking up a calf strain two months ago and while unlikely to start against the Rebels, he could return to the match-day squad.
Historically, Kiely has rarely rushed any of his stars back into the mix unless they are match-fit while he has no intention of reducing the tempo for any in-house games to avoid more setbacks.
“We’ve never held back and fear can't be your motivator. Improvement has to be your motivator and you're not going to get better by standing up,” Kiely said after they hammered Tipp.
“So we have to engage with the process, we have to engage with competitive games. It is literally next man up and that's the way it is. It might sound very insensitive but that's the way it just has to be.”
