INCREDIBLE. Deep into injury time, those who had been hoping to beat the traffic pause at the exits. Martin Daly barrels towards the Cork goal, the sort of hopeless last minute formality we've seen a thousand times before but feel obliged to watch again. He bursts through a couple of tackles, hold on a minute, he shoots, tow as prescribed, the net ripples. GOAL!

Hear the noise. It's 56 years since Clare beat Cork in a football championship game. Every beaten ghost contributes to the din.

Days like these, who can figure them? For long periods at Cusack Park, Ennis, yesterday, Cork not only looked a different class to Clare, but they looked to be in a different dimension as their big players came rampaging through the Clare defence time and time again.

Clare started gamely enough, scoring three points in as many minutes after the throw in, but the utter hopelessness of their task seemed evident by halftime when they went in trailing by five points and looking fortunate not to be further adrift.

John O'Keeffe said afterwards that he told his team that it was backs to the wall time. They must have smiled at the understatement.

Having begun so well, Clare were simply overrun in the middle of the park. Fachtna Collins and Pat Hegarty began shading the midfield battle, but more significantly the Cork half backs and wing forwards began picking up huge amounts of loose ball. O'Keeffe reacted quickly, plugging the leak in his team's left flank by sending in John En right. He looked like a man tending to a shaving cut while there was a haemorrhage going on elsewhere.

Colin Corkery was having his way inside the 21 yard line, winning a generous amount of ball and picking his options carefully when he had it. Joe Kavanagh looked to have left little of his talents States side. He had a superb first half.

They pulled back the early points deficit, drawing level by the 13th minute and when Kavanagh gave them the lead after a quarter of an hour, they held on to it until well into injury time.

By the second quarter, Clare were reduced to playing in patches. Mid fielder Padraig Cosgrove fluffed a great goal opportunity and the groans among the Ennis crowd amplified the recognition that such prodigality was going to be expensive.

The worst fears were confirmed on 25 minutes when a quick Cork counterattack concluded with Martin Cronin flicking a handpass into the path of Steven O'Brien and his low shot was deflected to the net by inrushing corner back Padraig Gallagher.

That score gave Cork a four point lead. Brian Corcoran caught the kick out and soloed 25 yards before adding another point to Clare's bonfire of troubles. Cork retained the five point margin to halftime.

Clare brought Francis McInerney to midfield for the second half and his influence improved matters somewhat. They scored well in the second hall, but it was the doggedness of the Clare defence which made the ultimate difference, however.

Playing against the wind, they worked the ball patiently out of defence time after time, and when not in possession they hunted Cork's forwards down ferociously. Cork's tally of 12 second half wides reflects as well on Clare as it does poorly on Cork.

At the other end of the field there were signs that Clare were beginning to do the business. Ger Keane was a revelation yesterday, thrusting and incisive in possession, calm and authoritative with dead balls. He had eight points yesterday, four in each half and six of them from frees out of the hand. Clare had fretted about the absence of Aidan O'Keeffe. As it transpired he wasn't missed.

Clare supplemented Keane's eagerness by introducing Cathal Shannon and David Keane, both of whom added some pace and intelligence to their rare sorties into Cork territory. Having conceded a point in the first minute of the second half, to Aidan Dorgan, Clare managed to claim the next five scores.

That brought Clare to within a point with 14 minutes remaining. The effort had taxed them greatly, however. Cork reasserted themselves in the middle third of the field - and Fachtna Collins and Corkery restored some daylight to the margin.

In the fraught last 12 minutes, Cork managed to string together seven wides in succession. As a reflection of their superiority that did fine. There was no hint of the horrors to come.

On 65 minutes, Clare wing back Barry Keating (a splendid performance) scored a fine point to bring Clare back to a couple of points down. Fachtna Collins wiped it out a minute later. People began drifting away.

As the game passed into injury time, Martin Daly took a free from his hands from about 30 yards out. He was expected to lob it into the small square, but hoisted it over the Cork bar. It looked like some final bookkeeping before the liquidation.

Two and a half minutes into injury time, with the crowd getting impatient for a rubber stamped conclusion, Clare won another free.

Keane dawdled. He passed without great urgency to Daly who had a sea of red shirts in front of him. We thought it was all over. Daly rippled the net. It was then.