DEFEAT but no shame. The day the Cork hurlers came to Parnell Park. If the afternoon is still remembered and spoken about in 30 years' time, it'll be for the occasion - the first championship meeting of the sides since the 1952 All Ireland final - more than for the match itself. Dublin competed manfully up to early in the second half of this All Ireland SHC qualifier, at which point Cork found a long-threatened extra gear, put down the foot and burned them off without fuss.

Neither outworked nor outhungered, the losers are entitled to take solace from the fact that they hurled about as well as they were capable of in the circumstances. The Dublin resurgence remains a work in progress. Beating Cork was never an item on the shortterm agenda, which is why the sight of the above scoreline shouldn't engender pessimism.

The first half was as entertaining as could reasonably have been expected and closer than might have been anticipated. That Cork were by far the smoother team was wholly unsurprising.

That Dublin's attitude and application were splendid was immensely encouraging.

A pity about the haste and waywardness of much of their approach work - Cork were altogether more accomplished at the task of finding a colleague in space - but, again, this was scarcely a shock.

Despite opening the scoring through a Pa Cronin point in their first attack, the visitors, backed by a stiff wind, took time to adjust to the conditions. Their first five attempts at scores yielded only that Cronin point, although Neil Ronan might have had a goal in the third minute but hit his shot straight at Gary Maguire, who stood his ground, brought up his hurley quickly and made a decent save.

As if blessed with preternatural anticipation, Ronan Fallon cut out three Cork attacks in quick succession by simply standing his ground in the centre. Not far away Joe Deane was seeing plenty of ball but not as yet capitalising on it; he drove three wides before finally finding the range midway through the half with a point that put Cork 0-4 to 0-3 ahead, Dublin's points having come from David Curtin (free), John Kelly and, with a fine effort from under the stand, Joey Boland.

With Se�n �g � hAilp�n making his presence felt in defence and channelling some good possession to his forwards, Cork began to turn the screw. Deane was now giving Tom�s Brady all sorts of trouble, creating a point for Ronan in the 19th minute and adding one himself three minutes later.

Just as Dublin were struggling a little for air they walked straight into an avoidable and cruelly timed blow seven minutes from the break. Donal �g Cusack despatched a puckout straight down the field; a brace of home defenders let the sliotar through them;

Kieran 'Erin's Own' Murphy fastened onto it, ran on unattended, took his time, picked his spot and drilled a low lefthand shot past the blameless Maguire. Two Curtin frees served to undo the damage only slightly. Halftime: Cork 1-9 Dublin 0-7.

Twice the sides swapped points on the restart. It was a stay of execution, nothing more, for Dublin who, it must be remembered, were playing at a higher pace than they'd been accustomed to all year - and feeling it. Fourteen minutes into the new half Deane teed up Kieran Murphy for his second goal with a deft, shortened-grip flick into unoccupied space ahead of him. Murphy ran on and repeated his first-goal trick shortly afterwards slapping over a point with the assistance of an upright for good measure.

The latter score left the winners 2-15 to 0-9 ahead with 20 minutes to go. The remainder amounted to target practice and gave the Cork management an opportunity to give some of their subs a run. Padraig O'Driscoll had the chance to give the scoreline a better look from the losers' point of view when cutting in from the right five minutes from time and letting fly; Cusack responded with an eyecatching save to his right.

By that stage, consolation scores were as much as it was about for Dublin. Pa Cronin smacked in Cork's third goal in injury time.

DUBLIN G Maguire; K Ryan, S Hiney, T Brady;

M Carton, R Fallon, G O'Meara; J Boland (0-1), D Qualter (0-1); R O'Carroll (0-2), L Ryan, D Curtin (0-4 frees); J Kelly (0-1), P O'Driscoll (0-1), K Flynn Subs K Dunne (0-1) for O'Meara, 29 mins; D O'Dwyer for L Ryan, 39 mins; A McCrabbe (0-2, 0-1 free) for Boland, 49 mins; P Carton (0-2) for Curtin, 54 mins; G Bennett for Brady, 56 mins CORK D �g Cusack; B Murphy, D O'Sullivan, S O'Neill; J Gardiner, R Curran, S �g � hAilpin; K Hartnett (0-2), J O'Connor (0-2); B O'Connor (0-4, 0-3 frees), K Murphy (2-2) (Erin's Own), P Cronin (1-2); N Ronan (0-2), K Murphy (Sars"elds), J Deane (0-6, 0-2 frees) Subs C O'Connor for B Murphy, 10 mins; S Murphy for O'Neill, 19 mins; C Naughton for K Murphy (Sars"elds), 52 mins; T McCarthy for B O'Connor, 59 mins; G Calnan for J O'Connor, 61 Referee S Roche (Tipperary)