A relieved John Kiely felt his Limerick side were lucky to be still in the game before a late scoring burst propelled them to victory over Clare.

The five-in-a-row chasing All-Ireland champions outscored their local rivals by 3-6 to 0-3 in the final quarter after being nine points down to open their Munster SHC campaign with a 3-15 to 1-18 win at a packed Cusack Park.

"There was so much in that 80 minutes,” the Treaty manager reflected in an interview with RTÉ.

“First half we were giving away too many frees. We didn't capitalise on our possession and the chances we had. In the first half we had 18 chances to their 16 and yet we went in 4-5 points down. That was disappointing. We weren't in flow really.

"The start of the second half wasn't great for us too, we struggled a bit. But the thing is Clare didn't hurt us at that time, if they had hurt us with three or four points at that time we'd have gone down nine or 10.

"The impact of the bench has to be the biggest piece of the day for us. All the lads that came on gave us energy, gave us possession, gave us line breaks, gave us chances, gave us scores, they gave us everything."

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