Limerick boss John Kiely has warned rival counties that his key men "have years left in the tank" after they beat Waterford by six points in the Munster SHC on Saturday evening.
The Treaty are chasing a record-extending seventh Munster title in a row, and served notice of their class with a confident showing at Walsh Park.
The opening-weekend draw against Tipperary might have given other counties a bit of hope there's some chinks in the Limerick armour, but Kiely insists he's more than happy with the condition of his squad as they look to mount another big summer challenge.
"We know how good this team is," he told RTÉ Sport. "I think the performance against Tipperary was underestimated, I think Tipperary's performance was underestimated, and likewise then we were kind of dismissed because of that you know? That performance was a top-class performance from both teams.
"We know the numbers, we're analsying the games, we know where we're at, we're very happy with where we're at. Whatever other people think doesn't really concern me.
"These guys have years left in the tank, alright? And anybody that thinks otherwise is fooling themselves."
Limerick's next two games are at home, against Cork and Clare, but Kiely is taking nothing for granted. The Munster SHC is so competitve that a team has won in successive weekends on just six occasions since the arrival of the round-robin format.
"Every game in the Munster chanpionship is really, really tough," he added.
"We've had two games on the road, delighted to get three points out of four. We head back to Limerick now and we've two really tough games coming up back there as well.
"We do it knowing our two performances have been very, very good. Our energy levels have been super. Our group is getting stronger. We're in a good place, I'm really happy with where we're at.
"We know we've a couple of pieces we need to go after, particularly our efficiency in front of goals, that's one piece we're working on very hard at the moment. But other than that there was an awful lot of positives for us.
"We'll take it one game at a time. It's a tough, tough competition, you're never out of the group until you're out of it. We're embracing that. It's a pleasure and an honour to be part of such a competition."
Waterford manager Peter Queally admitted his team felt the effects of a six-day turnaround.
The Déise had a great win against Clare last Sunday but they could not hit those levels again for the visit of Limerick.
"It did, there's no doubt about it, much and all as we tried to not build it up that it would be a thing," Queally said.
"Physically we did very little (during the week) but mentally and emotionally it's a very quick turnaround, it's very hard to come down off the high, try and get fellahs back up and come up with different gameplans and analyse the opposition and your own performance in such a short space of time.
"Having said that we can't really use it as an excuse. If we were beat by one or two points maybe, but Limerick were by far the better team, so we just have to regroup now.
"We're still in this championship. We're third in the table. The next two weeks is going to be crucial now to get ready for Tipperary in Thurles. We'll relish that challenge.
"The hunger is massive. We're ravenous when it comes to hunger because we're fed up of seeing all the other teams playing Munster finals and the All-Ireland series and stuff. We want to be part of that this year."
