A PRE-SUMMER sleepwalk of an afternoon in Croke Park yesterday, where the action came dropping slow and at times came not at all. Mayo and Cork found their way through to the league final in front of a crowd that at its thickest numbered 11,342 but by the end couldn’t have been much beyond half that.

When the PA system is advising all stewards that they may stand down within 10 minutes of the final whistle being blown, you know you’re not exactly dealing with the most hectic day in the history of crowd control.

By that stage the happiest people in the place were long gone out of it, Mayo’s delighted support having headed for the exits after their 2-15 to 1-17 win over Kerry.

They were entitled to their glee in overturning the assumptions of just about everybody – including whoever is in charge of the fixture list on the GAA website, where the league final was last night down as being between Cork and Kerry on April 29th. Poor old Mayo, they can’t get no respect.

Little will they care. Mayo crossed an old bugbear off the list here in beating Kerry in Croke Park for the first time since the 1996 All-Ireland semi-final.

They needed extra-time to get there but in the end they found a point to spare, a late Richie Feeney score grabbing victory and putting them through to their third league final in six years.

Even allowing for the appropriate caveats attached to springtime endeavours, it was a hell of an itch for them to finally scratch and one that will sustain them through their training camp in Portugal this week.

The largest chunk of the paltry crowd belonged to the westerners and they were rewarded with ample bang for their buck. A Kerry side that seemed to be going through the motions for long periods roused itself into a five-point lead 15 minutes from time but Mayo stuck to their task and found a way back into it.

Granted, they were helped no end by a kamikaze cross-field ball from Kieran Donaghy near the end of normal time.

From under the Hogan Stand between his own 20 and 45 metre lines, he sent a kick across the face of his own goal which picked out Alan Dillon close enough to the Kerry posts for Paul Galvin’s subsequent foul to bring a penalty.

Still, a five-point gap is a five-point gap and the ice in the veins of both Pat Harte and Cillian O’Connor as they nicked the equalising scores when nothing else would do bodes well for Mayo’s summer. As does the unearthing of livewire wing-back Colm Boyle whose goal in extra-time was a triumph of perseverance and wit over a dawdling Kerry defence.

They’ll meet a Cork team in the final whose defence of their league title didn’t get the most thorough going-over yesterday in a 2-17 to 1-12 win over Down. Conor Counihan’s men played within themselves for most of the afternoon and held Down at arm’s length without any great exertion.

A glittering afternoon’s work from Colm O’Neill was the clear highlight, the 2009 Young Player of the Year looking sharp and back to his best after last year’s cruciate woes. He contributed 1-6 to the Cork total, with three points coming from a constantly dangerous Paul Kerrigan and a galloping Pearse O’Neill adding another two.

Down had fits and starts to offer in response, with full-forward Conor Laverty pinballing around their attack to great effect before injury took him out of the game on the half-hour, and Benny Coulter carrying the fight long after it was lost.

But just when they looked like maybe making a game of the endgame by inching to within two points of Cork on 60 minutes, Down goalkeeper Brendan McVeigh made a good old-fashioned howler by coming for a high ball and not getting it, leaving Alan O’Connor to mop up the handiest goal he’ll ever score and put the game beyond reach.

In hurling, Dublin and Galway will now have to meet for the third time in this year’s league after their relegation play-off in Tullamore yesterday ended in a draw after extra-time.

A snappy, snarly affair saw Dublin reduced to 13 men after Ryan O’Dwyer and Alan McCrabbe both got the line for striking but a late Niall McMorrow 65 earned Anthony Daly’s side a replay on a scoreline of 2-20 to 0-26.

Goals from Conor McCormack and Ross O’Carroll buttressed the Dublin total against a Galway side who sprung Joe Canning from the start to spectacular effect. Canning scored 12 points – six from play – and dragged Galway from the fire in injury-time at the end of normal time with three points in as many minutes to tie the game.

It’s all very early in the year for flurries of that sort but nobody in Tullamore was of a mind to complain.