And the road stretches out before them...

THE TEAM buses waiting outside Páirc Uí Chaoimh afterwards might have been pointed to the same road, but Cork and Kerry are no longer travelling in the one direction.

An unwelcome draw may throw the Munster rivals together for the 19th time in a decade later this summer but Cork won’t fret at the prospect. Last August in Croke Park and again a week ago in Killarney, Conor Counihan’s men had Kerry’s measure if not their nous and conviction. That shaky bridge has been crossed now.

Defeating the Kingdom as comprehensively as the eight-point margin suggests in Saturday’s Munster SFC semi-final replay means Cork can move on from Croke Park ghosts in green and gold and focus instead on the gold.

“We were very dominant last week,” said Cork coach Conor Counihan afterwards. “We had three or four goal chances but couldn’t take them. Maybe we needed to cross this line fairly convincingly once and for all.”

That they did, but with it comes a new set of analytical criteria – those of potential All-Ireland winners.

“We’re above the radar now,” accepted Counihan, “but we have to learn to cope with that, and if you want to be successful you have to do that.”

Kerry coach Jack O’Connor noted discernible differences too. “They’re a driven team. The level of athleticism has certainly gone up since I was last involved. To match teams like Cork, it looks like that’s the road you have to go down.” But there was a caveat from the Dromid man: “The only thing about it lads is that the All-Ireland isn’t played in June.”

If it was, how ready are Cork? It’s unlikely Counihan will permit his players to absorb the hype that will inevitably follow this victory, primarily because they are still a work in progress and Limerick are awkward Munster final opponents. Cork are raw and powerful and developing as a unit. But they dominated two games against Kerry, and only found Diarmuid Murphy’s net once from play. There will be days when they won’t flow so freely and they’ll need a net-finder to bail them out. Donncha O’Connor and Daniel Goulding take note, the Pearse O’Neill express train won’t always arrive.

There’s still that scintilla of doubt about their fragility when things go pear-shaped. There was an interesting gut-check moment when Kerry turned a 0-9 to 0-4 half time deficit into a drawn game ten minutes after the break, but Donncha O’Connor’s penalty and a pointed free from Goulding snatched it from under our curious noses. Every opposition will have momentum for a while, but championship-winning teams limit the damage on the scoreboard when they’re under the cosh.

“We’ve a lot of work to do,” agreed Counihan. “We let Kerry back into a game that we were dominating and that’s been a feature for us. We’ve a lot of positives coming out of this game, but a lot of work too. This team has been through a lot with Kerry over the years but I was confident all the time that we could do it. We were a bit more efficient but I don’t think Kerry were at their best in the two games, and we have issues in terms of consistency and performance over 70 minutes.”

The duel of Anthony Lynch and Colm Cooper offered a suitable microcosm of Saturday’s replay in front of a healthy crowd of 30,270. The Kerry wizard toiled all day, but the longer it went on, the more forlorn his efforts became. The Ballyvourney man beat Cooper to good ball and bad, high and low, and in a man of the match-winning display, put a perfect goal-stopping shoulder on Eoin Brosnan late in the day.

Only Declan O’Sullivan and Tadhg Kennelly profited in terms of ball-winners in the Kerry attack, and one wonder was that down to the switch of Graham Canty to wing back and John Miskella to centre back. The latter got better as the game progressed – one of many in this Cork team with huge engines – and applied a late coup de grâce with the penultimate point of the match. But Counihan will note that only two points came from his starting half forward line and that his midfield, while competent and competitive, never dominated.

Kerry may point to the sending off of Paul Galvin in the first half for another schoolyard tussle with Noel O’Leary (also dismissed), but on reflection they would be better served wondering why they are getting such little leadership from the likes of Galvin, Cooper and Aidan O’Mahony, a trio of All Stars who could look to the aforementioned Kennelly and Declan O’Sullivan for focus.

Darragh O Sé is no longer blowing out dirty petrol, he’s running on fumes and his own innate sense of Kerryness. Some may say he won’t meet as mobile a midfield again this summer, but Cork have set the bar now. The veteran was far from Kerry’s worst player, but that Kerry are so desperate for the return from injury of one player, says a lot in itself. Jack and his wise men need more than Kieran Donaghy in the dressing room. Expect names like Anthony Maher, Aidan O’Shea and Barry John Walsh to appear on team-sheets this season.

The Kingdom enjoyed a rare period of supremacy in the opening ten minutes but it was quickly doused by Cork, with Donncha O’Connor profiting from Marc O Sé’s struggles with a hamstring strain. Goulding, Masters and Pearse O’Neill missed goal chances, but Cork still reached half-time a healthy, and deserved five points to the good.

Jack O’Connor took succour from his side’s early second half form, inspired by replacements Darran O’Sullivan and David Moran, but when Padraig Reidy felled Goulding inside the Kerry cover in the 46th minute, Kerry were again relying on Cork to bail them out of trouble. Instead, Donncha O’Connor converted the penalty with slide rule precision.

Kerry rallied briefly though pitching Declan O’Sullivan in the full forward line at the three-quarter point smacked of early desperation when he was still causing trouble further out the field.

The two games may benefit Kerry’s rehabilitation, but they’ll do wonders for a Cork squad quickly acclimatising to big-day situations. Limerick will ask questions but Counihan’s biggest test could be keeping the momentum going between provincial final and All-Ireland quarters in August.

Goulding missed a gilt-edged goal chance with 12 minutes left and four points between the teams (1-12 to 0-11), but egged on by a Cork crowd finally appearing to embrace this side, they brushed it off and made for home.

“The penalty was an important point, but I thought we were the better team throughout,” Counihan reflected.

“When we showed our best football we were difficult to play against.”

A few coaches around the country might agree.

Scorers for Cork: D O’Connor (1-5, pen, 3 frees); D Goulding (0-5, 2 frees), J Miskella (0-2), P Kelly, P Kerrigan, J Masters, F Goold, P O’Flynn (0-1 each)

Scorers for Kerry: C Cooper (0-4, frees), Darran O’Sullivan (0-2), B Sheehan (0-2, free), D O Sé, Declan O’Sullivan, T Kennelly, D Moran (free), (0-1 each)

Cork Subs: F Goold for Murphy (48); P O’Flynn for Kerrigan (55); J Hayes for P Kelly (64); F Lynch for O’Connor (68); C O’Neill for P O’Neill (blood sub, 67)

Kerry subs: Darran O’Sullivan for Sheehan (28); D Moran for M O Sé (half time); A O’Shea for Reidy (48); E Brosnan for D O Sé (56); D Walsh for T Walsh (52)

Referee: P McEnaney (Monaghan)