Allen: I felt totally confident we would win

Limerick manager John Allen wouldn’t be drawn yesterday on the prospect of facing Cork in the Munster final.

After his side turned Tipperary over in a rousing Munster SHC semi-final, Allen was asked about meeting his native county in the event of the Rebels beating Clare in the other semi-final. He stressed his dedication to the Shannonside cause.

“I’m committed to Limerick and I’m working with a very committed group of people.

“Cork is Cork. I’m a very proud Cork man, but I’m committed to Limerick now. If it’s Cork, it’s Cork.”

Allen added that last year’s defeat to Tipperary had given his side the experience to get over the line yesterday.

“I suppose we had some measure in last year’s game as well where there were a lot of the same players playing so I knew we weren’t going to be that far off the mark.

“I felt totally confident that we would win the game but you can’t say that too loudly in case people think you’re suffering from some type of a dementia!

Allen was particularly happy with the fact Limerick had closed out a tight championship game. “Particularly so when it’s a team like Limerick who don’t have a history of winning. You’re talking about ’73 since they won the All-Ireland. They’ve lost out in two finals, ’94 and ’96, so that tradition, or lack of tradition, of having a winning mentality isn’t there.

“It was great to see us going from three up to three down and scoring 0-9 (to Tipperary’s 0-2) in the final period. That was fantastic.”

Allen also took comfort in the performance of the late substitutions he introduced.

“When you sit down to pick the team to play in a Championship game you’re going on form number one, experience, toughness… That’s not to say the fellas we left off don’t have it, but that’s the mix we felt we had to have.

“We wanted a very hard working half-forward line and a very sharp inside line. That’s what we did and today the substitutions worked, other days they don’t. Everyone we brought in made a contribution. That’s good for us and it’s good for them because it means the next day we sit down to pick a team we’ll have the same problems picking the team for the next game.”