GAELIC GAMES: What can you say to Waterford? What slender comfort can anyone offer as they head south again to spend another winter nursing their regrets and keeping their hopes barely alive.

They came to Croke Park yesterday and played sharp and smart. They did the homework. They laid the plans. They came home with nothing only the Cork jerseys they made swaps for at the end.

They were level as they crossed the border into the final 10 minutes, that zone where it all goes to those who want it the most. And then that dreaded splintering sound. The noise that a season makes when it all comes ripping apart.

Somebody sold Waterford a pup. Somebody told them that all things being equal it would come down to will and desire. And then with seven minutes left Brian Corcoran pointed his index finger and there issued forth a flash of lightning, a bolt that blinded everyone in the place and left Waterford three points off the lead.

It was one of those moments which separate the divinities from the clay-footed mortals. A ball dropping out of the sullen sky. Corcoran and Joe Deane underneath it to make mischief. Corcoran stymied one way by Eoin Murphy, shifts onto his left, sees the block coming and in one of those moments of processing which means computers will always be too slow to play hurling, switches to a drop shot and posts it off to the right of Clinton Hennessy in the Waterford goal.

Among the 55,587 present there wasn't one who could forebear to cheer. Waterford had seven minutes left after all and the basic equation of hurling is that a goal equals one puck of a ball. No comfort there though. Neil Ronan flashed a point within a minute. Kieran Murphy and Ben O'Connor came through with frees. And now there was a chasm separating Waterford from a success in Croke Park.

So they waved goodbye to Cork again and if they have pause this week for regret it will concern two gambles neither of which quite came off. Paul Flynn was picked at wing forward but went in at full forward carrying a heavily strapped knee.

Beside Diarmuid O'Sullivan is no place to be when your mobility is impeded.

The other gamble had a little empirical testing behind it. Early in the Munster semi-final, Eoin Kelly switched onto Seán Óg Ó hAilpín and made hay for half an hour, finding space and snaffling points before changes elsewhere required him to be called back to midfield.

Waterford went with the same ploy yesterday. Seán Óg finished the game with a point to his credit, his first ever for Cork in championship. Poor Eoin Kelly drew a duck.

"The point was a little bit of history" said Seán Óg afterwards. "It was the first and probably it'll be the last one too."

The Cork captain's demeanour reflected that of his dressingroom. Any win in Croke Park on a championship day is a good win.

"We're happy enough. If somebody told me we would win by a point, even half a point, I would have taken it. We would have preferred to meet somebody else, to be honest. Waterford is a local derby. They were seriously pumped up. They hit hard and fought tooth and nail. At the stage of the match when Brian got the goal it was hard for them to peg it back. It opened up for us after that."

Those final few minutes had an awful desperation about them as Waterford went blindly in search of goals only to find every programme they ran had a bug in it. Cork were serene and confident. It's not a sprint, Seán Óg likes to tell lads. It's a marathon with a sprint at the end.

"I'm delighted," said John Allen. "It was a dogfight out there. Sixty minutes gone and it goes without saying Brian Corcoran's goal turned the game. What you saw from Waterford was the value of three games. They had three championship games since the Munster match. They were crisper and sharper than we were."

So Cork move on to a semi-final with Clare. Any chance, Allen was asked, of winning an All-Ireland without playing any team from Ulster, Connacht or Leinster?

"So you're ruling Kilkenny out?" he replied with a grin. "Listen, it's about the next game. I'm sure Anthony Daly talked his boys down so I'll do the same. Looking at the margin they won by we'll be happy to just give them a game."

Daly would have enjoyed that. Earlier in the afternoon Wexford and Clare disported themselves on the turf by way of support act. The game was a disappointment and condemned Wexford to the status of the championship's one-trick ponies. Always fervent and ravenous against Kilkenny; limp against everyone else.

Wexford, a county obsessed since the Rackard era with big men, played with one of the smallest forward lines ever to grace a big championship match. Clare by contrast are bursting with big men and could stick a couple of bruisers, Barry Nugent and Tony Griffin, into the corner-forward spots to show they had skills too.

Clare's recently acquired facility for scoring as well as battling served them well and with the wind at their backs they were nine points clear at half-time, a deftly engineered goal from Alan Markham after a Nugent pass having inflicted the most damage.

In the second half Wexford had the wind but still flatlined. Two of their forwards scored from play all afternoon. Back to the drawing board.