Cork 1-15 Dublin 1-14:THIS WE are told is what experienced teams do.

Yet it’s not exactly a satisfactory explanation of how Dublin, leading from just after little more than 60 seconds’ play in yesterday’s GAA All-Ireland semi-final until the 68th minute, got caught in the lunge for the line, conceding two of the last three points of a gripping afternoon’s football at a packed Croke Park.

Once again Bernard Brogan gave a dazzling display for Dublin, rifling in 1-7, all but a point from play, but the lack of convincing support meant that the exhibition counted for nothing apart from establishing a formidable lead in the footballer-of-the-year race.

All the more frustratingly for the outsiders, they looked to have survived their moment of crisis when Ross McConnell charged into Colm O’Neill for a 55th-minute penalty.

Donncha O’Connor’s deft technique in such situations made it a bit of a formality even against a goalkeeper of Stephen Cluxton’s quality.

The goal cut the margin to the minimum, 1-9 to 1-10, but Dublin hit back with points from Bernard Brogan and Bryan Cullen and the lead was back to three with 10 minutes left.

This year Dublin manager Pat Gilroy has reconstructed his team both in personnel and in tactics. The deep-cover defence with players dropping back has become practised and effective over the season but it makes harsh demands on a team.

In those final, critical minutes it was obvious Dublin were flagging. The approach work was less incisive and the finishing less accurate. Wrong options were taken in possession and the sense of continuous danger for Cork eased.

Furthermore if there was an abiding problem for Dublin, not just yesterday but throughout the summer, it has been the almost incoherent concession of frees. Perhaps it is part of the game plan to slow opponents but if the delinquencies are indeed pre-meditated it would make sense if fewer of them were so needless.

Eventually it was frees – albeit that not all of referee Maurice Deegan’s awards created consensus agreement – that undid Dublin. Within three minutes at the end Donncha O’Connor kicked three of them to take Cork beyond a two-point deficit and into the lead for the first time since the very start.

Replacement Derek Kavanagh doubled the margin. Dublin chased but as Bernard Brogan’s presumably speculative lob fell over the bar for the final score, the race ended.

The stadium was vibrating before the start, as 82,225 spectators – vast swathes of sky blue gashed here and there with rebel red – created a frenzied racket appropriate to the prize on offer.

Could Cork close to within one match of a desperately desired All-Ireland after six straight years of semi-finals and two sapping September defeats by Kerry or would Dublin, perennial fuel for purveyors of giddy hype, perform the miracle of reaching a first final in 15 years largely by stealth?

Maybe the capital’s disappointed football communities will in years to come view this as a rite of passage but the gloomier in their ranks will remember the past nine years of semi-finals, all four of which have now concluded in defeat – three by a point and the other by two – and how the previous three led nowhere in particular.

Agony for Dublin didn’t quite translate into ecstasy for Cork though, as relief was the keynote response of manager Conor Counihan but last year’s finalists held their nerve admirably after another less-than-inspiring display and closed out the match to lead at the only time that matters.

There will be plausible opinions to the effect that Dublin were the better side but it’s hard to disagree with Counihan’s contention that the better team always wins.

Dublin had got a tremendous start to the match. Cork’s curious defensive alignment saw Graham Canty staying with David Henry when he moved out to the Cork captain’s original positioning on the 40. Michael Shields picked up Eoghan O’Gara, fatefully leaving Bernard Brogan to Ray Carey.

In the second minute Brogan had slipped adroitly inside his marker to snaffle Niall Corkery’s precise long ball and slide home a goal for the opening score.

That breakthrough formed the bulwark of Dublin’s lead in the opening half. It fluctuated between two and five during that period, as the underdogs sank their teeth into the match. Cluxton’s kick-outs, if not as spectacularly successful as in the defeat of Tyrone, still generated a good share of possession.

Michael Dara Macauley overcame some early jitters to put in another strong, industrious display around the middle, taking ball in the air and on the ground. He and Ross McConnell certainly had the better of the centrefield duel at least until the second-half introduction of Nicholas Murphy.

Cork mightn’t have restarted all of their kick-outs with short, unopposed deliveries in the manner of Tyrone but Alan Quirke wasn’t too proud to send the odd one in that direction.

Cluxton made a good save from Alan O’Connor after Pearse O’Neill had found a rare bit of galloping space in the 12th minute and Paul Kerrigan saw a dipping shot rebound off the goal frame at the end of the first half.

But Dublin were as comfortable as they could have hoped for in the opening 35 minutes – a state of mind considerably abetted by Cork’s nine wides, including a rash of them from the usually dependable Daniel Goulding.

For Dublin Bernard Brogan might have been shooting the lights out and brother Alan dispatched two nice first-half points but otherwise the threat was limited.

Starved of goal chances, Eoghan O’Gara showed willingly for the ball and his physical presence was a distraction but his inability to kick points made things easier for the Cork defence, which had reshuffled by placing Canty at full back, later to be relieved by dual player Eoin Cadogan when the captain’s hamstring ominously gave out again, and moving Shields onto Brogan, whom the St Finbarr’s defender marked about as well as anyone could.

Starting the second half four behind, 0-7 to 1-8, Cork further depleted their morale by missing a clutch of good chances. Fortunately for them, Dublin reciprocated and it took seven minutes before McConnell ploughed through for a point to stretch the lead.

Things took a turn against Dublin in the final quarter. Colm O’Neill came in for Cork and made an impression, shooting a nice point and earning the penalty, by which stage McConnell had been yellow-carded and seemingly existing under some sort of immunity, which only expired in the 69th minute when a second yellow finally arrived.

By then Cork were turning the screw and with the practised ease of an experienced runner, dipped over the line narrowly but clearly in front.