John Allen insisted he will have no divided loyalties should Cork emerge as Limerick's opponents in next month's Munster SHC final.

Allen led his native county to their last All-Ireland success in 2005, and will be plotting their downfall on July 14 if they should overcome Clare in the other semi-final.

"I'm committed to Limerick and I'm working with a very committed group of people," he told the Irish Examiner after Limerick's defeat of Tipperary.

"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 felt Limerick had learned a lot from last year's heart-breaking loss to Tipp.

"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!

"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."

The Limerick manager was also delighted with the impact his substitutes made.

"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." Tweet

Most Read Stories