Allen, taking the defeat in his stride, said: “That’s sport. When you’re involved in sport at any level, you’ve got to take the defeats along with the victories.

“There’s no complaints (from us). We were hunting the game for too long. They wanted it more than we did as far as I could see.”

Cork could almost have snuck a dramatic draw at the finish as Ben O’Connor’s 67th-minute goal cut the Cats’ lead back down to three points. The Leinster champions held firm, however, for a 1-16 to 1-13 win.

Allen admitted: “We got the goal but the better team on the day still won. We were hoping against hope that we’d sneak another goal and get a draw but it wasn’t to be.

“Kilkenny had their homework done. They stopped our puck-outs. There was a lot of pressure on our half-forward line and they stopped our midfield from functioning.

“We changed our half-back line also, probably for the first time in three years, and that says a lot about how well Kilkenny did.”

Incredibly, today’s defeat was Cork’s first in a championship game since Allen took the reins from Donal O’Grady in October 2004.

On the subject of his future as Cork boss, the St Finbarr’s clubman added: “We’ll have to think about that. There’s a lot of time that goes into managing and preparing an inter-county team.

“We’ve had a fantastic time and great support. We’ll see what the future brings. We’ll spend a few weeks without training and we’ll discuss what we're going to do after that."