Offaly 1-9 Cork 0-10: At Portlaoise on Saturday Offaly proved again they can never be written off. Cork scored four points, from Fiachra Lynch, Colm O'Neill and David Kearney (two), before Ross Brady pointed for Offaly in the 15th minute.

A minute later Rory O'Connor added a second Offaly point but two minutes later he missed a penalty. Kearney stretched Cork's lead with point but in the 23rd minute Offaly's Conor Mahon scored a spectacular goal.

Colm O'Neill regained the lead for Cork in the 26th minute. Pádraig Duffy might have had a second Offaly goal but his shot grazed the crossbar. Two minutes later Dean Bracken denied Cork a certain goal and at the other end Niall Darby regained the lead for Offaly. Cork had a goal disallowed in injury time.

Kearney levelled after 33 minutes and substitute Barry Daly put Cork ahead again. Their lead was short-lived as Offaly produced three unanswered points, two from Ken Casey and another by O'Connor. Cork added points through Colm O'Neill and Anthony Fenton but points from O'Connor and Gerry Treacy gave Offaly a two-point cushion.

OFFALY: D Bracken; K Higgins, D Larkin, D Horan; J Knight, R Dalton, G Grehan; C Mahon (1-0), R O'Connor (0-3); N Darby (0-1), P Duffy (0-1), S Lonergan; W Mulhall, R Brady (0-1), K Casey (0-2). Subs: J Guinan for Lonergan, B Kelly for K Higgins, G Treacy (0-1) for Larkin.

CORK: T O'Connor; J O'Callaghan, E Cotter, C O'Brien; S Kiely, M O'Brien, A Fenton (0-1); F Lynch (0-1), A Barry; C O'Driscoll, D Crowley, R Kenny; C O'Neill (0-3), D Scannell, D Kearney (0-4). Subs: B Daly (0-1) for Crowley, D Gould for Lynch, R O'Dwyer for Kiely, KG O'Sullivan for Scannell.

Referee: M Sludden (Tyrone).