Declan Hannon has "every chance" of making history by becoming hurling's first four in a row All-Ireland winning captain after Limerick's nine point semi-final victory over Galway.
Hannon was ruled out of yesterday's 2-24 to 1-18 triumph at Croke Park after suffering a knee injury the Munster final win against Clare.
With Will O'Donoghue deputising at centre-back, the Treaty County made a storming comeback from six points down after 25 minutes to trail by a point at the break, before utterly dominating the second half as Aaron Gillane grabbed two goals.
READ MORE: Limerick power past Galway to move within 70 minutes of history
Limerick will meet the winners of today's other semi-final between Kilkenny - the last county to do the four-in-a-row - and Clare and Treaty boss John Kiely is hopeful of Hannon's chances of making it in two weeks' time.
"He's got every chance," said Kiely. "We just have to see how he's able to cope with the bit of work during the next week to 10 days.
"We'll give him every opportunity to state his claim. We'll just have to wait and see.
"Listen, we didn't want that indecision to be hanging over us. If he was out, we needed to have a real live replacement.
"It was the right call. Declan wouldn't have been fit today. We hope to get him back during the week onto the training field."
With the win banked, he looked to play down the Treaty county's shot at history.
"I’ve often said it to the lads, they don’t need any further success to demonstrate to them or me or anybody else that they are a great team," Kiely stated.
"They've been a fantastic bunch of men. They are, and will continue to be, no matter what happens.
"That (the four in a row) is obviously a point of focus - but you can’t concentrate on the finishing line, just on the piece of work in front of you. We’ve done that very successfully right throughout the season.
"That’s been there since the day we left here last year - could it be done, or will it be done?
"All we’re worried about is, can we give ourselves the opportunity to win the next match? We’ve managed that well. We’re very experienced. We've enough to worry about besides that.
"When you’re losing the likes of Sean Finn, Declan Hannon, Cian (Lynch) has had injuries – we’ve had a lot to contend with.
"We’ve had a barrage of really strong challenges in the Munster championship.
"We haven’t had time to look very far down the road at all, only take it week to week, session to session and be the best we can in those moments."
Galway boss Henry Shefflin paid tribute to Limerick but was disappointed that his side were over-powered after a hugely encouraging start.
"They were very, very impressive," he said. "We tired and some of our players didn’t play to the level - they will be disappointed themselves and as a collective you'll have to be disappointed.
"I said we were in a better place this year to really attack this game and go at it. The body of work we had done set us up nicely for that.
"We brought a lot of fight to last year and that fight went out of it during the second half, which is very disappointing - and very disappointing for our supporters who travelled in great numbers."
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