A MATCH of almost distressing tedium ended with St Sylvester's really none the wiser about what to expect from their first venture into the provincial club championship. The Dublin champions had prepared exhaustively for yesterday's Leinster quarter final against Shannonbridge.

Players had been withdrawn from the Dublin county panel and the Malahide entourage arrived in Tullamore tastefully and uniformly attired in tracksuits - plainly meaning business.

Unfortunately the Offaly representatives had such a miserable afternoon that the winners must have wondered what all the fuss was about. It was by no means an impressive display by Sylvester's marksmanship was too poor and the defence was too uncomfortable when being run at - but they must have realised pretty quickly that it was going to take an epic struggle to lose this one and settled for the merely sufficient.

Technically, they had enough scored by the 18th minute, but the certain indicator of their likely success was the dreadful shooting of Shannonbridge's forwards who collectively scored two points, one of which was a free, and whose full forwards failed to require anything more of the umpires than occasional arm waving to signify another inaccuracy.

That free was curled over in the sixth minute by Fergal McEvoy whose place kicking had been such a feature of the first round success against Rathnew. Sadly for the Shannonbridge wing forward, yesterday constituted a horror afternoon. Four kickable frees were missed, as was an opportunity from play.

With one of their primary scoring sources dried up, the Offaly club were never in the hunt. They trailed 0-7 to 0-2 at the interval and despite a reasonable share of ball and the exertion of a fair bit of pressure in the second half, their chances of mounting a serious recovery looked as likely as Bob Dole's.

The Dubliners' penetration was far greater. Their forwards might have run up an untidy 12 wides, but they found it comparatively easy to create opportunities. Pick of the attack was Dublin panellist Shay Keogh whose five points represented only half the opportunities that came his way.

Allowing that more than 50 per cent of his chances came from the placed ball, the Sylvester's full forward still created plenty of trouble for his marker Gerry Corbett.

Misfortune befell the Dublin side in the ninth minute when veteran Limerick corner forward Timmy Cummins had to be replaced after sustaining an injury. At this stage Shannonbridge had actually taken the lead the only stage during the match when they achieved this improbable feat.

By the 12th minute, however, Niall Guiden had tied tip the match at 0-2 apiece and from then on, the home side were chasing a steadily disappearing match. Impressive, if unsustained, bouts of pressure from Sylvester's pushed out the lead.

Within two minutes, 16th to 18th, Keogh had energetically shown for two well placed passes and on each occasion kicked a splendid point - from the right and left corners.

One concern of Brian Talty and the Sylvester's selectors will be the ease with which Shannonbridge ran through the middle of their defence. No price was asked yesterday because the Offalymen too often moved the ball out wide - which placed too great a strain on their afflicted powers of finishing.

Either side of the interval, the hapless McEvoy kicked three widest whose conversion might have enlivened the event, given that Kevin Rohan's fine save from Colm Early in the 37th minute and an impressive, steepling point by John Ryan two minutes later kept Shannonbridge notionally involved for a while longer.

Points were swapped in the 47th minute an eventful 60 seconds for Shannonbridge's Pat Joe Kelly who was unfairly booked for an alleged foul on Declan Barnes (Kelly had himself been earlier badly fouled by Keith Galvin whose indiscretion went unpunished) before kicking his side's fourth and final point.

Any chance of a late comeback was well deflated by a scoreless 10 minutes up to the 57th, after which Sylvester's rattled off another three scores to underline their easy superiority and set up a semi final meeting with Kilanerin of Wexford.