Cork 2-17 Down 1-12THIS IS all becoming very habit-forming for Cork. A fifth win in a row over Down – and a fourth by what you'd call a gaudy margin – puts them into their third league final in three years and at no stage here did it look like there was much else on the cards.

Down stuck with them without ever sticking to them and even when James McCartan’s side occasionally approached proximity on the scoreboard, it didn’t chime with what we saw on the field. Cork were bigger, faster and more clinical and the eight-point gap between the sides at the finish told no lie.

The game was played out in near silence, Cork having enticed very little support to come to see them in Croke Park and the Down contingent only intermittently having anything to cheer. With the Mayo supporters having long since left the stadium after their win over Kerry, a challenge-match mood settled over the whole place, something the players themselves could feel down on the pitch.

“It was a bit surreal,” admitted Paul Kerrigan afterwards.

“I was just saying it outside that when you can hear the ball being kicked, it’s a bit different. We’d be used to it down in Cork for some of our league games but you wouldn’t expect it when you come up to Croke Park.

“I think maybe there might have been something to be said for us going as a double-header with the Cork hurlers for their league semi-final in Thurles. You might have got a bigger crowd. But we’re not worried about the crowd. We’re up here to do a job and we’re happy to have done that.”

Kerrigan certainly did his, a three-point haul just one aspect of a fine all-round display in which he picked out some languid kick passes to go with his usual hard running. But although he, Pearse O’Neill and Ray Carey all put in afternoons to be proud of, it was corner-forward Colm O’Neill who easily stood apart as the game’s best performer.

O’Neill has packed a whole lot of life into his 22 years, far more of it than he’d have liked to.

Coming back from two cruciate injuries brings with it a heavy cloak of doubt and worry but on this evidence he has come out the other side with every bit of the skill he had before. He was unmarkable yesterday, an unending threat to a Down defence that tried everything and everyone on him but got nowhere.

His goal on 43 minutes was the key score in tilting the game in Cork’s favour for once and for all. Up to then, Down had hung in there manfully, going in at half-time just 0-9 to 0-7 behind and coming up with some fine scores of their own – most notably a towering Mark Poland point that came on the end of the cross-field pass of the day from Benny Coulter.

But when Paddy Kelly’s pop pass to O’Neill put the Cork corner-forward through on goal eight minutes after the break, his finish was low and skidding and zipped across Brendan McVeigh into the far corner. It put five points between the teams and from there to the end, Cork were comfortable.

Even after Aidan Carr’s penalty has closed the gap between them to just two points – 1-13 to 1-11 – 15 minutes from time, Cork hardly wavered. Noel O’Leary kicked a rousing point a minute later before O’Neill added another.

By the time McVeigh dropped a high ball in his own small square to leave Alan O’Connor with an open goal, the day was more or less done.

“We’d be very lucky,” said Conor Counihan when asked afterwards about having made a third league final in a row.

“We have a good honest bunch of fellas who work hard. This is their third final now and it’s important to win it because sporting life is short. You need to get as much as you can out of it and for us in Cork a national title would be a significant achievement.”

They’d say the same in Mayo, no doubt. The last Sunday of the month will tell the tale.

CORK: A Quirke; R Carey, M Shields, E Cotter; N O'Leary (0-1), E Cadogan, P Kissane; A O'Connor (1-1), P O'Neill (0-2); F Goold, P Kelly, P Kerrigan (0-3); C O'Neill (1-6, two frees), A Walsh (0-1), D O'Connor (0-1). Subs: B O'Driscoll (0-1) for Walsh (half-time); J O'Sullivan for Cotter (half-time); D O'Sullivan for Cadogan (46 mins); M Collins for Goold (56 mins); D Goulding (0-1) for D O'Connor (64 mins).

DOWN: B McVeigh; D McCartan, B McArdle (0-1), D Turley; K McKernan, N McParland, C Garvey; A Rogers, K King; P Turley (0-1), M Poland (0-1), A Carr (1-2, 1-0 pen, one free); A McConville (0-1, free), C Laverty (0-3), B Coulter (0-3). Subs: C Maginn for Laverty (35 mins); N Branagan for McCartan (46 mins); A Branagan for D Turley (46 mins); K Quinn for P Turley (60 mins).

Referee: M Duffy (Sligo).