Brian Lohan says Cork merit their place in the All-Ireland SHC final - and warns that his Clare side must be better to beat the Rebels.

Twenty four hours after the Banner beat Kilkenny to reach their first All-Ireland decider since 2012, Lohan was back in Croke Park on Sunday to watch Cork beat five-in-a-row hopefuls Limerick.

If that result was a surprise to many, it wasn't to the Banner boss.

"The best teams make it to the All-Ireland final," insisted Lohan, speaking at Clare's final media night in Ennis.

"We can have complaints but at the end of the day – last year or the year before, or whatever it was – the two best teams are in the All-Ireland final.

“It’s Cork now and they’re there on merit. They’ve beaten Limerick twice (this summer).

"So we can see from the last day - I was in the stand watching the last day - it was just a brilliant experience and brilliant game.

“The desire they had, the pace that they had, the spirit that they had. The levels of skill. Just the relentless running, the relentless attacking.

"It was just a real advertisement for hurling and everything that is good in Cork hurling.”

Lohan has done his review of Clare's comeback victory over Kilkenny, a result that turned the tables on the semi-finals meetings of the previous two years.

The Banner were in trouble at half-time as they went in with a five point deficit to make up, but it could have been worse after Kilkenny failed to convert several goal chances.

"We didn't play well," he said. "There was a lot of frustration at half time that we didn't play well. There was a significant breeze, even though it didn't look it from the stand.

"But it was significant. It suited us an awful lot more in the second half. We had the opportunity to reset. There was a lot of frustration at half-time, as I said. We got better and made better decisions.

"We had to think on our feet. It was kind of a test of character as well. So absolutely it was a good way to win. We feel we can get better and obviously we have to get better as well."

Despite his unhappiness with the first half display, Lohan won't stray beyond making maybe one or two changes in the starting line-up for Sunday week.

“We know this group," he stressed. "We know these guys. We did feel that they were going to get better. The quality of our starters are our starters because generally, they are the best players in those positions.

"Things didn’t work as well as they could have done, poor decisions, but we did feel there was more in the players.

“There was a general acceptance amongst everyone inside in the dressing room that we didn’t do as well as we could have done.

"It wasn’t just amongst the management. It was the whole group, just very frustrated after that first half."