The sound of the chorus from the Banks of My Own Lovely Lee from the Cork Constitution dressing-room must have been hard to take for the Terenure side at Lakelands Park on Saturday after the visiting Cork side had resisted a determined but ultimately futile attempt by Terenure to compensate for early inadequacies.

When David Coleman dived over the Cork line as half-time approached, Terenure seemed to have grabbed the initiative. But whatever advantage they gained from that score the quickly surrendered, first when Craig Fitzpatrick missed the resultant conversion and then when they conceded a penalty just two minutes later.

Ronan O'Gara stepped up and his kick left Cork trailing by only two points at half-time. It was of little use to the mood of Terenure supporters that Eric Miller cried off in the morning leaving their back-row without its most powerful performer, but what really sickened them was that Colin Potts left the pitch five minutes before half-time and that their line-out suffered gravely as a result. Steve Baretto was later to retire and further changes were made at scrum-half and hooker.

Girvan Dempsey also pulled up early in the second half and retired.

None of which should detract from the performance of Cork Constitution. Their approach was far from pretty but it was effective - they simply used the considerable power of their pack to grind Terenure down.

Neither side seemed to have many progressive ideas as far as running with the ball was concerned but Cork seemed to have a much greater awareness of what was required and their clear superiority in the loose around the scrums and also in the line-out gave them a distinct advantage. For Constitution, the reliability of Ronan O'Gara and Brian O'Meara at half back was crucial on many occasions while David Sheehan and Ken Murphy caused Terenure's line-out approach serious problems.

Constitution now have an opportunity to get into the last four with matches against St Mary's and Shannon at home and Clontarf away, while Terenure face St Mary's and Galwegians away and Clontarf at home - not an attractive prospect on the evidence of Saturday's performance.

Scoring Sequence: 5 mins: Fitzpatrick pen, 3-0; 10: O'Gara pen, 3-3; 36: D Coleman try, 83; 38: O'Gara pen, 8-6; 45: Corkery try, 8-11; 20: O'Gara pen, 8-14.

Cork Constitution: B Walsh; J Kelly, Conor Mahoney, Cian Mahoney, D O.Briem; R O'Gara, B O'Meara; I Murray, F Sheehan, J O'Driscoll; D Sheehan , K Murphy, D Corkery, J Murray; U O'Callaghan. Replacements: P Soden for Murray (38 mins), A Byrne for Cian Mahoney (69 mins), D O'Callaghan for Murphy (74 mins).

Terenure College: C Clarke; D Coleman, B Treacy, M Smyth, G Dempsey; C Fitzpatrick, N Hogan; S Baretto, J Blaney, J Campbell; R Sheriff, C Potts, D Blaney, P O'Malley; A Ryan. Replacements: D Quinn for Potts (34 mins), R O'Connor for Dempsey (43 mins), D Hegarty for Hogan, Crossan for Blaney (both 65 mins), K Coleman for Campbell (72 mins), J Kavanagh for Ryan (77 mins).

Referee: P Marshall (Australia).