Liam Cahill bemoans Tipperary's's flat start in sobering Division 1 semi-final loss to Clare

Liam Cahill says his Tipperary team have a pile of work to get through to be up to speed for their Munster SHC opener against Limerick next month.

The Premier county fell to a comprehensive eight-point Allianz Hurling League Division 1 semi-final defeat against Clare in Portlaoise on a day when their intensity and accuracy were well off the mark.

The Bannermen opened with eight unanswered points before Tipp could respond and finished by outscoring their opponents 0-08 to 0-02 in the final 25 minutes.

"We've a fair bit of work ahead of us for the next five weeks," said Cahill.

"When the stakes go up, different players react differently. Some of our players today when the pressure cooker was turned up fairly high just weren’t able to find the answers.

"That comes with practice. They’ll have to go away, take the lessons out of that, and work hard on it.

"We have to have quite a number of discussions as a manager and players between now and the next five weeks to really make fellas aware of where they’re at, what areas they need to improve on, and give them the support to do that.

"I have to really get behind these players now. They don’t become bad hurlers after one 70 minutes in the middle of March. Our goal was always the 28th of April. That’s what we’re aiming for.

"We’re not going to hide under that and use that as an out today. We are disappointed we didn’t perform and we didn’t give the big travelling Tipperary support a little bit more to go on.

"We flashed into the game for 10 or 15 minutes after half-time, we looked to be finding our way but then just lost it again.

"There’s a bit of work for us all to do, both players, coaches, managers, and everyone to get behind what needs to happen to have us competitive and in the right