“Richie English unfortunately has picked up a cruciate knee ligament injury so his involvement this season is unfortunately come to an end," Kiely said. "We will look after him and he will get the best of care in the weeks and months ahead and he has the full support of the management team and the panel or players.

“Richie is a real solid guy and he will bounce back from this and will work real hard to get back to where he was before he got the injury. It is one of those things that you can’t legislate for - we have had Richie McCarthy, Paul Browne, Seán Finn in the past. Every group of players over time will have a number of those injuries and there is no rationale for why is happens."

Kiely revealed Limerick’s medical staff were unable to make an early diagnosis on the extent of the Doon man’s setback - “It’s the nature of the injury in that his wasn’t an actual rupture on the spot.

“He had good stability after the injury but unfortunately the nature of his injury is that it won’t heal on its own and it can’t be rehabbed so the best advice we got is that he is best to go away and get the operation done.”