Based on this answer, it sounds like limiting the results returned to a specific number should be working. However the following example does not appear to work as I'm getting back many more results.

List<Event> eventList = eventRepository.findByArenaId(arenaId, new PageRequest(0,2));

For this example Repository:

public interface EventRepository extends CrudRepository<Event, EventId> {
 List<Event> findByArenaId(String arenaId, Pageable pageable);
}

Is this a bug or is there something else that I need to do to get limits working?