Was this the rebirth of the city game? Hardly, but not for many summers has the Hill chorused so lustily. On what might have been his last day, Tom Carr watched the side he has lived and died with more than once finally throw off the legacy of the past two accursed years. They will advance to the Bank of Ireland championship quarter-finals imbued with soaring ambition and rediscovered swagger. And Dublin sides with real swagger are dangerous.

Sligo learned the truth of Peter Ford's mantra regarding the capital. Croke Park is a good place to win, but not merely to play in. After the city side's inspired re-start into the delighted Hill end, when they fired 2-1 without reply, all pretence about this not being Dublin's home venue was in tatters. To further deny it would be foolish.

Dessie Farrell and Ciarβn Whelan could not have looked more at home had their favourite sofa been installed. So one-sided was the second half, it might well have been.

As Tom Carr has so often realised in previous summers, the smallest millimetres of fortune can have immense consequences. For once, his charges were the benefactors. Up 0-8 to 0-7 after a labour-intensive first half, the Dublin side bounded eagerly towards the hill following the restart, anxious to impress the expectant sky-blue masses.

Colin Moran lobbed a high, pointed effort that rebounded solidly off the post. Sligo's corner-back Philip Gallagher had it eyed but the falling ball slid through his hands and was snatched by Dessie Farrell, who instantly goaled.

It was the same goalmouth that had been scene to Dublin's calamitous moments at the start of the second half of last year's Leinster final replay against Kildare. Now, it was their heaven.

Declan Darcy roared through for a point from the restart and two minutes later, Whelan more or less killed Sligo, combining with Senan Connell and Jason Sherlock before burying his shot from close range. Up 2-9 to 0-7, Dublin looked unstoppable.

The extreme change in tempo and the suddenness of their urgent circumstances must have stunned Sligo. This was a step too far and too quickly.

If not quite a visitation of the nightmarish half-hour they endured against Galway last year, it made for another extremely dispiriting exit from the championship.

At least Sligo did not die on their feet, with Paul Durcan keeping the pistons going and Dessie Sloyane slowly raising the score with disciplined free kicking.

But Dublin, pumped by the brief scoring blitz, were operating on a different plane and the second half was essentially a highlight reel of fabulous Dublin scores.

Coman Goggins soloed half the pitch before thumping an emphatic point. Late on, Whelan curled wonderfully from in front of his own bench. Enda Sheehy was fed by Darcy and Farrell for Dublin's third goal, an easy-looking thing, after 46 minutes.

It was one of those days when Dublin was left pondering all the things that went right. Tom Carr's radical pre-match surgery to his right flank looked astute.

Shane Ryan had a storming afternoon at corner back and Sheehy and Darcy will be hard to displace from the attack now. It was a memorable match for the statesmen of the city frontguard, Farrell and Darcy.

Even before his wolfish strike seconds into the second half, Farrell had been bothering young Gallagher, taking three fine first-half points. With his marker upset by the mistake, he went to town with a veteran's dispassionate care. By the time Nigel Clancy was drafted in to try and shackle him, the city team was home and dry.

Sligo's capitulation was all the more devastating given the fact that over the first half, they had grafted to put themselves into a position of realistic contention. Unfazed by the tremulous atmosphere, they hung tough through a dogged first half.

Gerry McGowan and Durcan impressed, each bagging two points from play and Sligo's half-back trio repeatedly put paid to Dublin's sweeping breaks forward.

Down 0-5 to 0-2 after 17 minutes, they gradually pushed their back to even terms and must have been satisfied to retire for the break just 0-8 to 0-7 in arrears. The might well have led had not Davy Byrne made an unnaturally quick save off McGowan's fine, angled effort.

Within seconds, that state of being must have been a remote, dreamlike memory. There was nothing gleeful about the drubbing Dublin inflicted over the second 35 minutes, it was simply business.

Ian Robertson seemed a bit puzzled to be withdrawn just after Dublin's lightning restart, replaced by Vinny Murphy after 39 minutes, giving the Dublin look a distinctly old boy streak.

Sligo's Peter Ford shuffled the decks valiantly but to no avail in the second half. It was rough on Paul Taylor to get his first championship run on Croke Park when there was nothing earthly left to be done.