A glorious afternoon at Semple Stadium attracted a big attendance of 38,661 for yesterday's Church & General National Hurling League semi-finals. Unfortunately, the double bill was less than riveting. After a first match which only flickered into competitiveness for a brief spell in the second half, All-Ireland champions Clare misfired as badly as anyone can remember since the county's rise to prominence in recent years.

It is the nature of such events that the significance of Cork's crushing victory will only be seen in retrospect. Should Clare power through the summer, what happened will scarcely merit a footnote but in fairness to an effervescent Cork display, yesterday could well go down in future as the team's calling card.

Neither manager was reacting unexpectedly to the match. Jimmy Barry Murphy was delighted with the maintained progress of a promising League campaign but he wasn't jumping to conclusions about Clare.

"We've won nothing yet but we're on the way back I feel. The team needs confidence, we're coming from a long way down. I don't know how Clare approached this but it was a big game for us. I'd say we wanted to win it more than they did, I'm not sure. They're still the team to beat."

Wing forward Kieran Morrison echoed the view. "I think Clare weren't too hungry for it today, they're probably focusing more on the championship but it was a great win for us."

Ger Loughnane was bewildered by his team's meltdown but concluded his comments with a humorously defiant "we'll still win the Munster championship" - an echo of similar remarks made after the league final defeat by Kilkenny in 1995, which turned out to be improbably prophetic.

"They'll (Cork) be a problem for whoever they meet but I'm more concerned about ourselves because that was brutal. It was all the way through the field, not just one person. The worrying thing about it is that hurling in training was going so well.

"It's worrying the way we played today and the way we played in the last big match against Limerick. One of those will be our opponents in the championship and, I don't know, you go home this evening and say `where are we going?'. In the last three years we've never been in the position we're in going home this evening. How we react to that will determine the year."

In all areas of the pitch Cork were on top. Even allowing for the flatness of the challenge, there were touches in the winners' performance that were empirically excellent. On a fine day with the exemplary Semple Stadium surface playing firm and fast, the forwards moved the ball well and took some delightful scores.

At the back, the defence lived up to its burgeoning reputation with Brian Corcoran outstanding at centre back, overshadowing Conor Clancy who had been Clare's best forward against Galway, and well supported by his colleagues. Pat Ryan and Mick Daly at midfield stood up to the physical demands of opposing Ollie Baker and Colin Lynch and hurled effectively even during Jamesie O'Connor's visits to the sector.

Last season's player of the year had a frustrating afternoon.

Whereas he worked as hard as ever, little was working to plan and in his primary position on the wing, O'Connor was marked tightly by the player who had given him his most uncomfortable afternoon in last year's championship, Sean O hAilpin.

A cagey opening yielded only one point in the first 11 minutes, a free by Joe Deane, who switched corners before the throw-in to renew rivalry with Michael O'Halloran, who had eventually subdued him last June. This time around, Deane's performance on his marker was a graphic illustration of his developing confidence.

Of Clare's defence only Frank Lohan could have had unmitigated feelings afterwards. He subdued Sean O'Farrell, who had a disappointing afternoon, and the Clareman later moved onto Deane in an attempt to limit the damage. After O'Connor levelled for Clare in the 12th minute, the All-Ireland champions scored only once more in the first half by which stage they were 11 points adrift.

Cork's forwards made merry amongst their sluggish markers. Alan Browne took a lovely point after catching an O hAilpin sideline cut in front of Brian Lohan and banged over a point to restore the lead within seconds of O'Connor's equaliser and Clare never recovered.

In the 20th minute, Sean McGrath opportunistically took the first goal for Cork. "I remember it breaking down and Seanie Farrell going for it and I just called for it. Before I knew it I was after cutting inside Frank Lohan and in the back of my mind, I decided I was going for a point and I got hooked. The ball hopped up and I decided I'd have a cut, give it an oul' wallop."

Cork were driven further ahead by a three-minute burst of 0-3 from play by Kieran Morrison who made a strong bid for one of the troublesome wing forward positions.

Clare's attempts at coming back into the game were comfortably thwarted. Two quick points on the restart were answered by three in succession from Cork.

Between the 41st and 48th minute, a sequence of five unanswered scores reduced the deficit to a still-daunting seven points but within seconds of Clancy's adding the ninth point, McGrath hoisted a high ball in on the Clare goal and David Fitzgerald fumbled Alan Browne's connection into the net.

As could have been anticipated, this knocked the stuffing out of Clare and a routine few points were added in the closing 10 minutes to seal the result although Clare nearly had a goal when Ger Cunningham reacted quickly to a ball he had lost bouncing off the crossbar.

Cork: G Cunningham; F Ryan, J Browne, D O'Sullivan (capt); M Landers, B Corcoran, S O hAilpin; P Ryan, M Daly (0-1); S McGrath (1- 0), F McCormack (0-1), K Morrison (0-3); S O'Farrell, A Browne (1-1), J Deane (0-9, six frees). Subs: K Murray for O'Farrell (49 mins).

Clare: D Fitzgerald; M O'Halloran, B Lohan, F Lohan; L Doyle, S McMahon, A Daly (capt.); O Baker (0-1), C Lynch; J O'Connor (0-3, three frees), C Clancy (0-1), D Scanlan; N Gilligan (0-1), B Murphy, D Forde (0-2). Subs: PJ O'Connell (0-2) for Scanlan (half-time); E Taaffe for Murphy (45 mins); G O'Loughlin for Gilligan (51 mins).

Referee: D Murphy (Wexford).

A heroic first-half display from goalkeeper Jason Ryan saved Tipperary from a much heavier defeat in the All-Ireland Vocational Schools' senior hurling semi-final at Loughrea last night, when Galway eventually won by 0-12 to 0-6.

Three times Ryan advanced off his line to deny Galway certain goals but his bravery was unable to inspire his colleagues against the physically imposing Galway outfit.

Cathal Coen and Donal Moore did the scoring damage for the home team, accounting for 10 points between them as Galway booked a final date against Cork.