We didn’t get going in first-half: Johnny McGuirk

Dublin minor hurling manager Johnny McGuirk says his side left themselves with too much to do by half-time in last Sunday’s All-Ireland MHC semi-final defeat to Limerick.

The Dubs rallied at the start of the second half but after trailing by nine points at the interval it was not to be as the Shannondiders ran out six-point victors (1-18 to 0-15).

“We are bitterly disappointed,” says manager Johnny McGuirk.

“We just didn’t get going in the first-half and we didn’t get numbers where we wanted to get numbers.

“In fairness, we struggled with their spare man (Ciarán O'Connor) at the back which I didn’t think that we would have, and that’s very disappointing for us.

“We probably started edgy enough and they picked off a couple of scores that helped them settle.

“Their spare man was cleaning up and we were getting no traction in the forward line.

“It was a difficult first-half and at half-time we had no option but to change things but at the end of the day we just left ourselves with too much to do.

“We change things around at half-time and started to get a bit of momentum after bringing in a couple of lads.

“We got a few frees to narrow the deficit but it was probably just too big a mountain to climb for us."