Lisdowney manager Trevor Fletcher reacts to Leinster Final defeat against Rathnure

Lisdowney certainly died with their boots on in last Sunday’s Leinster decider with Rathnure but manager Trevor Fletcher still felt that they didn’t play to their full potential.

“The best team won today and they wanted it more than us but I feel that we will be disappointed with our own performance and that’s sport and that’s hurling,” he said.

“You can’t always perform at the top level every time you go out but it’s just unfortunate that the lads didn’t give their best today.”

The Kilkenny club were without Dylan Jordan (suspension) and Kevin Sweeney (injury) while David O’Carroll was only fit to come on in the second half. Those losses proved crucial on the end result.

“You are looking at three starters there and when you take three starters out of any team they will struggle but it just goes to show the quality in our panel.

“We’ve spoke about the panel all year and the subs came on and helped us and everyone played their part there today but it just wasn’t to be,” Fletcher added.

The Tipperary native admitted that a few things went wrong for his side but also praised the opposition for their display.

“Some of our decision making and shot selection wasn’t as good as we’d have liked or how we normally are - even some of our handpasses went astray - but the boys don’t look for excuses,” he said. “It just didn’t happen for them and it was just one of those days.

“Declan Ruth is over Rathnure and they are well set up, they play a sweeper deep and they move the ball through the lines with runners coming off the shoulder.

“They hit some fantastic scores there as well,” the manager added. “I had even told our lads beforehand to push them towards the sideline and put them under pressure but they were even scoring from there so fair play to them.”

Sunday’s defeat was Lisdowney’s third week in a row in action after previously not played for four weeks since the county final.

That run, coupled with a tough semi-final clash against Borris-Kilcotton, looked to have caught up with them in the end.

“I’m not one to look for excuses but it was a long tough year,” he said.

“The Kilkenny championship is very hard won and you have to earn it and this group of players have to take the positives out of that as we are the county champions and they are going up to play senior next year and they have to learn from defeats like this. How they are feeling right now will hopefully drive them on over the next few months.

“Everybody will regroup now and it’s worth remembering that we are the county champions but the lads know they will need to find another 10% as they make the step up to senior level.”