Though they put 36 points on the board and knocked Clare out of the Munster championship, it was not a Limerick player who won Man of the Match at Semple Stadium on Sunday.
Instead, it was Clare's Tony Kelly, scorer of a remarkable 17 points, eight of them coming from play.
"I missed a few vital ones in the second half which will need to be addressed for the next round in the qualifiers," a self-critical Kelly told RTÉ after the game.
Clare managed 1-23 in response to Limerick's 0-36. The sides had been level at 15 points each at the break.
Limerick march on to play All-Ireland champions Tipperary in the Munster semi-final while Clare will play in the qualifiers.
"When they get their engine motoring, they're hard to stop," said Kelly of Limerick.
"We'd be content with our first half performance but our second half performance wasn't where we wanted it to be.
"You need a few games to bed in and get used to real championship pace. It's the same for every team. Limerick are going to go up another gear or two. We'll be looking to go up several more gears as well. The nature of the championship, you can't rely on games to get going, you have to hit the ground running.
"It's do or die from now on in. We're going to have to work hard over the next couple of weeks and bring our performance up a good couple of levels."
Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
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