But Allen refused to use that lengthy gap between games as an excuse as he was left to rue a poor start which left Limerick seven points adrift at half-time.

"The better team won - that goes without saying," he said in the aftermath.

"We never got a hold on the game. Obviously, I'm looking at it with a pair of green eyes now and you are focusing on your own team.

"You would have to say we were chasing the game all the time. We made poor use of the ball. Our conversion rate was poor. Our free-taking wasn't great.

"All of those added up and having said all of that, probably at half-time, if we had converted all of the frees we had missed in the first half, we might have only gone in two points down instead of seven down. But that is grasping at straws in a way. We weren't winning any line."

Clare's dominance all over the pitch was telling and despite Limerick cutting the gap to four during a second-half spurt and substitute Shane Dowling having a late goal attempt blocked away, there was no catching the Banner youngsters.

Allen added: "I wouldn't use it (the five-week gap since the Munster final) as an excuse, but it certainly isn't ideal.

"If you were talking about the Premier League and there was a five-week break between games, sure form goes out the window.

"How do you keep players in that form? Whatever confidence they had coming off the Munster final is way gone. It is not an excuse, but it's not ideal. It's too long."

The Corkman's two-year term as Limerick boss is now officially at an end and he will take some time out to mull over his managerial future in the coming days and weeks.

"I initially agreed to two years, so I will talk to the County Board over the next few weeks now and we will discuss that," explained Allen, who guided Limerick to their first Munster senior crown since 1996.

Pressed on whether he would like to remain in charge, he admitted: "I am not sure really what I'll do. I don't know is the answer. The board might say to me: 'Sorry John, your time is up'. It's something over the next few weeks we will discuss."

Limerick captain Donal O'Grady also doffed his cap to this ever-improving Clare side in his appraisal of the semi-final, conceding that 'nothing went right' for his team.

"It's a mixture of frustration and disappointment really because it's a known fact that we didn't play well," said the 33-year-old midfielder, a survivor from Limerick's last All-Ireland final appearance in 2007.

"Nothing went right for us in the first half. Nothing went wrong for us the first day against Tipperary and I remember we had two or three wides - you need these breaks.

"It wasn't for the lack of effort, Clare just really played well. We prepared for it. We all have spent time with video analysis but it's so different out there.

"You can talk about setting up to play them but after half an hour, people would be saying did Limerick watch videos at all because Pat Donnellan (the Clare captain) was coming out with ball after ball.

"They put so much pressure on us out the field that delivery wasn't exactly pinpoint into the lads inside and they were being double marked."

O'Grady continued: "We got the first few scores in the second half and I felt that we were coming back into the game but we really needed a goal or two.

"There was no sign of that coming because they just swarmed that full-back line and were probably happy to see us tap over a few points.

"Ultimately (Clare's free-taker and 11-point hero) Colin Ryan had a day that he will never forget. I don't think he missed a thing."