Allen at a loss to explain why Limerick failed to perform

The last thing John Allen needed was any reminder of what went wrong. The slack, nervous touches. The near complete loss of composure, and form. The numerous frees, dropping like badly misfired cannons, left and right of their intended target, and without any need for Hawkeye.

As if Allen could then provide a tidy snippet to explain it all. Because no matter how many faults surfaced in Limerick’s game they all added up to the same inescapable truth.

“The better team won, that goes without saying,” Allen conceded, with typically grace. “We never got a hold on the game, and you’d have to say we were chasing the game all the way.”

It’s not that Limerick weren’t nervous: it’s just that Allen never sensed any nerves, until the nerves were already beginning to shred hopelessly.

“I didn’t notice anything before the game, our preparation was similar, and the atmosphere in the dressing-room was good. There wasn’t a tangible tension around the players.

"Maybe the fact that we were chasing the game unnerved fellas. We weren't winning in the half-forwards or midfield, our backs were under pressure. Then they got the goal, and it looked like we were nervous, then.

An issue
"But I didn't foresee that. And I didn't see any evidence of arrogance or fellas not preparing themselves mentally like they did for the last game. I don't think hype was an issue either but I don't know definitively, either."

Nor is it that Limerick’s form dropped with any prior warning: everything was going well in training, although in hindsight – and just like Dublin realised against Cork the week before – a five-week break since winning a provincial title is a slow curse to momentum.

“I wouldn’t use it as an excuse,” said Allen, “it’s not an excuse, but it certainly isn’t ideal. Whatever momentum you have you do lose. I mean if you were talking about the Premiership there and there were five weeks between games, sure form goes out the window as such. How do you keep players in that form? Whatever confidence they had coming off the Munster final is way gone. Again it’s not an excuse but it’s certainly not ideal. It’s too long.”

What definitely wasn’t ideal was the sight of Declan Hannon missing free after free in the first half (four in all), when Limerick simply could not afford to surrender any more of an advantage to Clare. Allen didn’t deny the ultimate cost of those misses, but he defended the decision to both start Hannon, and wait until the 32nd minute to introduce Shane Dowling, who converted all six of his placed balls in the second half.

Allen also fended off pre-match criticism not to start Dowling – including from this newspaper’s hurling analyst Nicky English, who wrote on Saturday that “not starting your best free-taker is taking a chance”.

It wasn’t that simple, according to Allen: “But were we going to take off a player, that early in the game? We did considerate alright. I know Nicky English thought our best free-taker was on the line. Now, I do frees with guys every night before training. Declan Hannon’s striking was superb. The best all year, 10 out of 10, every time. Now Shane’s striking was very good as well. But over the course of the nights Declan was ahead of Shane, most nights.

“So statistically speaking our best free-taker was on the field, starting. Now, obviously he missed a number a frees, wasn’t in great form today. But then you’re taking off somebody to bring on a free-taker, and you know, we did do that, after 32 minutes. It was 40-odd minutes before we took anyone off in any other game. So we were very aware of it. We were just hoping that he’d turn the corner.

“Having said that, probably at half-time, if we had converted the frees we missed in the first half we might have gone in only two points down instead of seven points down. But that’s grasping at straws.”

There were other issues to address, too, including Clare’s superior tactics in and around midfield: it’s one of the reasons Allen and his selectors stayed on the field for some eight minutes at half time.

“Sure we were seven points down, and not playing too well. It was a serious place to be. The fact that we were being beaten in lots of areas, it was a matter of trying to find how we could bypass the sweeper, and we rejigged four of our forwards in the hope that somebody might find a spark in a new role.

“We were hoping that our half-forwards would kind of support the midfielders and that even though there was a free man out there, we had a free man inside, that it would counter that. Now it probably didn’t. I suppose we were very pleased with the way we held our shape in the other games and we tried to stay with that for as long as possible.”

Limerick will want to see Allen remain in charge for as long as possible, although, like Dublin’s Anthony Daly, he will take time out now to assess things.

“Well I initially agreed to two years. So we’ll have to discuss that over the next few weeks. I don’t know, is the answer. Our time is up, but I haven’t spoke to the county board about it, and they haven’t spoken to me. It’s something for the next few weeks.”