Allen: No complaints but spare us moral victory talk

In the bowels of the Kinane Stand, a magnanimous John Allen held up his hands and admitted his team had been beaten fair and square.

Kilkenny didn’t come away unscathed from this quarter-final but they did so with the loot and Allen wasn’t going to take anything away from them.

“At half-time, we were happy enough to be just a point down having played against the wind. I said to the players ‘do we now believe we can win this’?

“We were in the game at that stage, but in the 15 minutes after half-time it was won and lost.

“We can’t have too many complaints. The better team won over the course of the hour. I’m sure Kilkenny’s stats were much better than ours.

“Our backs were heroic though. Richie McCarthy at full-back was just super. Tom Condon went into the game with an injury and was lucky to last the half-hour. All and all the better team won.”

Allen agreed Limerick put more pressure on their defence by failing to retain enough ball in their half-forward line.

“No, we didn’t win anything there. We brought on Kevin Downes and we brought on Paul Browne and moved James Ryan up to see if we could win anything in the half-forwards.

“There’s no doubt that those Kilkenny players are still the great players they’ve always been. They’re very strong in the air and good at winning possession.

“We weren’t able to break that. And maybe one or two of their goals were lucky enough. That’s it. The team that gets the most goals usually wins these games and they got four and we got one.”

Allen is taking more positives than negatives from his first season in charge of Limerick, however..

“From the first day we went out at the end of February and were well beaten [by Clare] we have made a lot of progress.

“Limerick hurling is going in the right direction, but moral victories are no good any more.

“There are a lot of young players on the team, there are a few more to come into it and it’s a matter of knuckling down for all the hard work that it takes to get up there with Kilkenny and Tipperary.”

Despite falling at the quarter-final stage for the second year in succession, Allen is adamant there is enough quality in Limerick to see them join the hurling elite.

“It comes down to intensity and work-rate. We had that in the first-half and we didn’t have it in the second-half.

“Our forwards certainly didn’t have it in the second-half. Confidence can do wonders and winning a game against Kilkenny or Tipperary, the confidence levels could rise.

“Certainly, Limerick have a few exceptional hurlers and a lot of very good hurlers. It’s just making that break and beating one of those top teams. I do think there are enough good hurlers.”

Having played both Kilkenny and Tipperary this summer, Allen fancies the reigning All-Ireland champions to come out on top on August 19.

“I think that Kilkenny are probably better than Tipperary at the moment. Tipperary are improving. That was a very workmanlike performance by Kilkenny and they’ll be very hard to beat on that form.”