Leinster turned up the heat during the second half and burned off the weak challenge of defending champions Munster at sparsely-attended Nowlan Park yesterday.

Leinster led by 1-6 to 0-6 at half-time, and afterwards they outplayed the opposition with Charlie Carter putting the final gloss on their win with a goal a minute from the end.

Munster coped reasonably well without their Clare quartet early on and the scores were level three times during the opening 10 minutes. Martin Storey scored a brilliant goal for Leinster in the 12th minute, following a textbook sweeping movement involving Brian McEvoy and Troy. The teams shared equally in four points during the 10 minutes immediately after the restart. However, when Leinster had three quick scores from Carter and David Cuddy (two) they opened up a gap that grew larger and larger as the game wore on.

The final against Connacht will be at Nowlan Park on November 22nd.

LEINSTER: S Byrne; S Whelahan, J Errity (all Offaly), W O'Connor (Kilkenny); L Walsh (Dublin), B Whelahan (Offaly), L Keoghan (Kilkenny); L O'Gorman, A Fenlon (both Wexford) 0-1; D Cuddy (Laois) 0-6, M Storey (Wexford) 1-1, B McEvoy (Kilkenny); P Codd (Wexford), J Troy (Offaly) 0-2, C Carter (Kilkenny) 1-5. Subs: P Barry (Kilkenny) for O'Gorman (38 mins), N Moloney (Kilkenny) for Codd (44 mins).

MUNSTER: B Landers, S Frampton, S Cullinane (all Waterford), D O'Sullivan (Cork); M Foley (Limerick), F Hartley, B Greene; T Browne (all Waterford), T Dunne (Tipperary) 0- 1; D Shanahan (Waterford), B Corcoran (Cork), M Galligan (Limerick) 0-2; S McGrath (Cork) 0-2, L Cahill (Tipperary), P Flynn (Waterford) 0-3. Subs: O Moran (Limerick) 0-1 for Shanahan (37 mins), F McCormack (Cork) for Cahill (42 mins).

Referee: G Devlin (Armagh).