CORK CONSTITUTION made hard work of it when securing all five points against Lansdowne in this AIB All Ireland league game played at Temple Hill yesterday.

The home side got off to a flyer with Cronan Healy touching down for the game's first try in the third minute.

Ritchie Lane missed the conversion.

Robbie Dolan opened the scoring for Lansdowne with a penalty in the eighth minute.

Cork Con dominated the opening 20 minutes, but slow ball and taking the wrong option cost them tries when they were there for the taking.

Ritchie Lane did increase their lead to 8-3 in the 21st minute, but really Con should have had two more tries at this stage.

Lansdowne, inspired by Con's lack of killer instinct started to come more into the game.

Robbie Dolan reduced the deficit to two (8-6) with another penalty, before a breakaway converted try created by second row Alan Maher with a 60 metre run and scored by John Coleman gave the visitors a 13-8 lead they did not deserve.

Con regrouped and were level by the 36th minute when another superb run by Tom Gleeson, which saw him cover 50 metres in seconds, created the try for Denis Hurley to end the first-half scoring.

Con were back in front two minutes after the restart when Ritchie Lane made it two from two from penalties (16-13).

They increased that lead to 10 by the 53rd minute when prop Robert Quinn was at the end of a superbly-constructed roving maul, Lane adding the conversion.

But Lansdowne refused to lie down and were back in the game by the 73rd minute when Robbie Dolan converted his own try (23-20) and gave them the momentum entering the final seven minutes.

Con never panicked and ensured themselves a bonus point in the 79th minute when Colm Murphy went over in the corner after great work by Frank Cogan created the try for him to end the scoring.

CORK CONSTITUTION D Hurley; R Lane, D Nethery, T Gleeson, C Healy; D Lyons, P McKee; C Murphy, R Quinn, Tim Ryan, J Moloney, S O'Connor, M O'Connell, B Cutriss, F Cogan Subs E Leamy for Moloney, D Murray for Quinn, 56 mins; D O'Riordan for Healy, 67 mins LANSDOWNE M Ashford; B McGeevor, N Walsh, R Dolan, J Coleman; A Geraghty, D Coughlan; J Lyne, K Corrigan, P Jones, S McCarthy, A Maher, D Lavin, V O'Dowd, R Boucher Subs C Casey for Coleman, 38 mins;

R Jones for Boucher, 40 mins; K Cleere for Jones, 78 mins Referee A Lewis (IRFU)