John Kiely doesn’t pause to consider the answer. The number is etched in his mind: 63.
In constructing Limerick’s preparations for the 2026 season, first he had to deconstruct 2025. So, over the course of August and September last year, the Limerick manager embarked on a project to meet every member of the playing panel and backroom team for one-to-one summits. Sixty-three meetings in total.
He had never previously taken such a deep-dive to analyse a season, but given how 2025 had unravelled – knocked off their throne in Munster after a penalty shoot-out loss to Cork, followed by an All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Dublin – Kiely felt a thorough audit was required.
“The time had come,” he says. “[Those individual meetings lasted] two to three hours, they were valuable. Everybody’s opinion is important and everybody’s story is important.
RM Block
“You learn things about people and maybe they learn a little bit more about you as well in the middle of those conversations. I take notes [during the meetings], I take a lot of notes, I have two books of notes.
“It’s amazing what you glean from those conversations. Everybody has their own perspective.”
Of those 63 meetings, there were people Kiely met who ultimately have not gone on the journey with Limerick this season. But the majority remain inside the dressingroom.
Having won five All-Ireland titles since 2018 and become the first team to claim six consecutive Munster crowns (2019-24), the fear after last season’s exit was that the group might have drained the last drops of energy and hunger from the well.
At some point, the hurling undertakers were always going to come knocking on Limerick’s dressingroom door.
But arising from those 63 meetings, Kiely instead discovered a group with an unmistakable desire to make a mark in 2026.
“[From the meetings] you get a sense of the mood of the group and the level of disappointment and hurt that’s there. You get a sense of the measurement of the determination to go forward,” he recalls.
“That’s what you’re really looking for. As much as you’re trying to assess where others’ determination is, you’re trying to assess where your own is.
“It was a great process. It was a very valuable process. I think they picked up on that then as well and knew that if we’re going to give that much time to this aspect of reflection, only good things could come from it going forward.”
With sports psychologist Caroline Currid agreeing to rejoin the setup, that was seen as another key acquisition for a season that has started to perhaps feel like one last great push by many within the camp to win another All-Ireland.
“Caroline came with a lot of experience,” adds Kiely. “That’s why I approached her in the first place, because she had been there with Tyrone, Dublin, Tipperary, so she knew what it took to be a successful team.
“Having people involved like Paul Kinnerk and Joe O’Connor, they had won it with Clare, you had a lot of people who had been there.
“I hadn’t been there (in an All-Ireland final before 2018), so I needed people around me that had and knew what the standards looked like. Because the standards are critical in terms of driving performance.
“Caroline would have taught me a lot of aspects around how to deal with people and how to listen to people and about what things actually matter. It mightn’t be how you’re striking the ball or catching the ball or shooting the ball. It can be more about how college is going, how your relationship is going, how life is for you, as opposed to what’s happening on the pitch.
“If it’s not right off the pitch, it won’t be right on the pitch. That was one of the takeaways, for sure.”
This is Kiely’s 10th season at the helm of the senior hurlers in his native county. He is in the last of his current two-year agreement, but ultimately it will be Kiely’s decision as to when he decides to step away.
“I’ve never felt like I didn’t want to go forward. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. I’ve found every season to be totally different – the challenges are always different every year.
“There’s a different soundtrack to every year. There are different challenges, different narratives, different opportunities, different routes, different points of emphasis. It’s never the same.
“But we know the roadmap at the same time, the layer of the season goes down on top of a roadmap and we’ve never deviated from the roadmap – this is the route, this is the schedule, this is what we’re doing and that’s it.
“We cope with whatever happens in between. If injuries come, we deal with the injuries. If the performances dip or rise or fall, we deal with the points of emphasis.
“But I’ve never felt like, ‘this is too much, I’m fed up with this’. Never. I’ve always loved sitting into the car and going to training. Always.”
Kiely is an old hand at this stuff now. But after qualifying for his first final as manager in 2018, he entered his All-Ireland semi-final post-match press conference and declared that if the media tried to contact any of his players he would “shut the whole thing down”.
Looking back now, he smiles at how that moment played out.
“Everything is of its time. In 2018, it was new for us all. I was thrust into a position where I had no experience prior to that,” he says.
“Of course I was very defensive for the players. I’d go to war for them, they know that. I’m not surprised that’s the way I reacted at the time. Obviously we’ve all grown throughout the process.
“We have very solid routines now and loads of experience of being through all this. We weren’t equipped to embrace it at the time, we’re far more equipped now to embrace it.”
Over the course of this campaign, Kiely has seen the experience and game-smarts of his players in how they have dug out victories, not least their comeback triumph over Clare last time out.
“There’s a great defiance in the group at the moment. The last two seasons ended in a way that was very difficult to accept. We were all terribly, terribly disappointed.
“So what you do? You either walk away or you double down and I think everybody in our group doubled down.
“I think there’s great determination there within the group to at least be the best we can be. If we get beaten, well and good, it’ll be by somebody who just played better.”
John Kiely on . . .
The league game versus Galway in March, which Limerick won 2-27 to 0-31
It’s a reference point. A lot of their team that are playing now were playing that night, five of their front six were playing, so that’s a good place for us to look. But ultimately the game next Sunday is going to be a one-off game. They’ve gone on a journey since and we’ve gone on a journey since.
The huge celebrations after the Munster final win
We won’t apologise for celebrating our victories anyway, that’s for sure. We’ve worked damn hard for them. It’s 32 weeks’ work, so if we get success along the way, by Jesus we’d better enjoy it. I was delighted to see that the players were able to be as animated as they were on the pitch.
Limerick’s ability to rally in matches this season
I think there’s a great determination and resilience there. It’s exemplified when the games get into that phase where it’s on the line and the boys are embracing those moments. Their execution, their decision-making, their cohesiveness as a unit on-pitch in those moments has just been top-class. They can take great confidence from being through those battles and coming out the right side of them.
The culture in the dressingroom
There’s a lot of vibrancy in there. We have music at the centre of it all. We try to foster an environment where it’s fun and it’s enjoyable. The dressingroom is a central part of that, it’s where the players spend most of their time together. Look, we all remember the dressingrooms that are silent and full of hurt. We had a lot of those last year. We want it to be a very vibrant, happy, enjoyable space. They’re the moments hopefully that they’ll remember when they’re finished playing the game.
His career-break as a deputy school principal to assist JP McManus in preparing for next year’s Ryder Cup at Adare Manor
It’s a great opportunity and I’m really enjoying it, enjoying the great team of people in Martinstown. I’m very proud of the many achievements that the school had during my time there, but I suppose you only have one life so you want to take whatever opportunities come along.
Attending the Ryder Cup at Bethpage last year
It was an absolute privilege to be there, to witness it, to be able to see everything happening behind the scenes. We had an all-access pass so we could go wherever we wanted, all day, every day. We were there for the full week so you get an insight into something that you’d never get an opportunity to see.
