All-Ireland SHC Semi-final/Limerick 5-11 Waterford 2-15:What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and any sort of a victory in yesterday's Guinness All-Ireland hurling semi-final would have positioned Waterford quite nicely for this year's All-Ireland. Instead it killed them.

The county's fifth semi-final defeat in 10 years was good news for an exuberant Limerick, who reached a first All-Ireland final in 11 years and face Kilkenny in three weeks' time.

The intuition that this rerun of the Munster final with Limerick might prove an ambush of Waterford's accelerating hopes proved stunningly accurate at a packed Croke Park.

If, however, you had been told the match would end up as a high-voltage shoot-out with seven goals, you would have assumed the Munster champions would have survived.

Instead it was Limerick who ruled the shooting gallery with five immaculately timed goals that put this electrical storm of a match beyond the grasp of opponents who looked by turns tired and distracted as they tried to pull out of the tailspin into which they hurtled from the start.

Who knows what caused such a radical reversal of fortunes since the Munster final when Waterford had eased clear in the final minutes? This time they were the ones who looked tired, and a succession of mistakes and bad wides added to Dan Shanahan's first goal drought of the championship meant they were well removed from the intense pitch that had got them this far.

Limerick had the motivation of the widespread assumption of a Kilkenny-Waterford final. From the throw-in they tore into the match, refusing to let their opponents settle into the powerful rhythms of their A game.

Blocking and hooking and chasing with venom, they turned the contest at times into a rugby match, referee Séamus Roche having to throw in the ball to resolve repeated rucks.

They were sharp and irresistible in the opening quarter and by the 22nd minute, with manager Richie Bennis working the crowd in the Hogan stand, they led by 10, 2-7 to 0-3.

Andrew O'Shaughnessy led the assault from the right corner, putting the first serious black mark against Aidan Kearney's otherwise impressive rookie season until he had to be moved.

Tony Browne, briefly, and Eoin Murphy fared better, but the Kilmallock attacker wasn't finished yet.

It took only six minutes for the first goal to be scored, Donie Ryan moving onto Donal O'Grady's through ball and finishing expertly. Less than 10 minutes later Mike O'Brien blocked Tony Browne and switched play into O'Shaughnessy's right corner. The corner forward skinned Kearney and dispatched the second goal.

Waterford just couldn't find their bearings. Their touch was uncertain and the ball rarely hopped for them. Shanahan was quickly moved to full forward after Limerick had got to grips with his presence under puck-outs on the right wing.

Waterford became fixated on trying to launch high ball down on the square, but they weren't winning the breaks. A couple of balls to the left corner found Shanahan in space and in the 27th minute, Ken McGrath's delivery led to Waterford's first goal.

Shanahan played it back across the goal and the inrushing Eoin McGrath missed the connection but Stephen Molumphy got some sort of a contact to deflect the ball into the net.

Moments later Shanahan had a chance of his own but chose the safe option by taking his point.

What had started so unpromisingly for Waterford reached half-time with only four points in it, 1-8 to 2-9.

Eoin McGrath's arrival as a replacement for Jack Kennedy added some dynamism to the attack but his use of the ball wasn't always as effective as his penetration and ball winning.

Looking back, Waterford may pinpoint the opening phase of the second half as where the match went off the rails. Instead of chipping away at the margin they embarked on a series of mishaps, shooting wides, Flynn missing a simple free and Séamus Prendergast being dispossessed.

There had been a warning Limerick were still posing a big scoring threat when Seán O'Connor within just over a minute of the restart drew a good save from Clinton Hennessy. And that threat was soon realised when Browne again lost possession, this time near his own end-line, and Brian Begley rumbled in to set up Ryan for his second goal and stretch the margin to seven.

Waterford were still creating chances and Flynn just missed getting hold of a ball crossed into the square by Molumphy. Things became frantic as McCarthy replaced John Mullane, who had been nursing a virus these past two weeks, and then Flynn, leaving the attack looking inexperienced, haphazard and blunt.

But Limerick were also struggling to finish off the match. Their half forwards weren't winning enough possession and in the 56th minute a goal from Eoin McGrath cut the margin to three, 2-10 to 3-10, after replacement Mark O'Riordan, just on the field, failed to cut out a ball across the square from Séamus Prendergast.

The margin was down to one in the 64th minute after a lovely strike by Browne, but with Waterford now on their opponents' shoulder and ready to kick for home, Limerick somehow conjured another goal.

Begley was a significant player in the second half, and on 64 minutes the big full forward won ball and was wrestled to the ground by Ken McGrath. O'Shaughnessy took the penalty and showed great composure in rattling the net rather than taking the cheap point.

Yet again Waterford responded but having reduced the margin to two, 2-15 to 4-11, they sustained the final and fatal blow when Begley again won ball and goaled himself.

Amazingly, Shanahan, on the goal standard all season, missed two opportunities in injury-time, one a catch, swivel and strike that flew wide and the second flicked from his possession for a 65.

HOW THEY LINED OUT

LIMERICK: 1 B Murray; 2 D Reale (capt), 3 S Lucey, 4 S Hickey; 5 P Lawlor, 6 B Geary, 7 M Foley; 8 D O'Grady, 9 M O'Brien (0-1); 10 M Fitzgerald, 11 O Moran (0-2), 23 S O'Connor; 13 A O'Shaughnessy (2-7, one goal a penalty and six points from frees), 14 B Begley (1-0), 28 D Ryan (2-0). Subs: 12 N Moran for Fitzgerald (40 mins), 26 M O'Riordan for Foley (55 mins), 21 J O'Brien (0-1) for O'Connor (59 mins), 15 K Tobin for Ryan (67 mins), 30 P Tobin for O'Grady (69 mins).

WATERFORD: 1 C Hennessy; 2 E Murphy, 3 D Prendergast, 7 A Kearney; 5 T Browne (0-1), 6 K McGrath (0-1, free), 4 B Phelan; 8 M Walsh (capt), 13 J Kennedy (0-1); 14 D Shanahan (0-4), 9 E Kelly (0-3, one free), 10 S Molumphy (1-0); 15 J Mullane, 11 S Prendergast (0-1), 12 P Flynn (0-4, all frees). Subs: 22 E McGrath (1-0) for Kennedy (25 mins), 23 S O'Sullivan for Mullane (46 mins), 20 S Walsh for Flynn (52 mins).

YELLOW CARDS: Limerick: D Reale (37 mins), S Lucey (70 mins).

Referee: Séamus Roche (Tipperary).