After the drama of those one-point football qualifiers, Croke Park braced itself for something less equivocal yesterday. It duly arrived with All-Ireland champions Kilkenny dismantling the latest challenge from their province. They haven't lost in Leinster since Wexford beat them in the provincial final five years ago.

This time around the opposition was the same but the result didn't deviate from the more recent theme that has featured Kilkenny winning their six matches in Leinster since manager Brian Cody took charge by an average of over 12 points. It is the county's 58th Leinster title.

An early goal by DJ Carey set the trend and although Wexford conjured up a mini-revival in the first half, this was snuffed out by the interval, after which things just got worse.

In the champions' dressingroom, Cody could reflect on another irresistible display by his team. They had to cope with John Hoyne being sent off for a second yellow-card offence shortly after half-time but far from hindering Kilkenny, the incident became the springboard for their best phase.

"When a team has a player sent off, it very often works against the opposition. For whatever reason - and Wexford came at us very strongly for about five minutes after that - play opened up, we got a goal and took control. We imposed ourselves more in the game and started winning more ball.

"In fairness our backs were very good. Usually people talk about our forwards and they're not bad but I thought our backs today were superb."

For his counterpart Tony Dempsey, the task will be to set aside any damage to moral in the three weeks between now and the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

"At half-time I felt we had contested every ball and played fairly well and I thought the standard of hurling was very good. Colm Kehoe was a big loss, Larry Murphy a loss... but on the day Kilkenny were super, a different team in the second half. A sending-off very often lifts a team. It opened up play and we lost our shape a little bit.

But it's not that easy to get goals against Kilkenny. They're a super team and will take a lot of beating.

"We've never had the facility of the back door before. We'll do our best to get the boys back focused, maybe take a break. The under-21s are playing them again on Wednesday. We'll be hoping for a lift from them."

Veteran Larry O'Gorman searched for appropriate imagery and as usual came up with something. "It was like trying to open a big hard nutshell with your teeth, very hard to crack it."

In Ulster the honours were contested a lot more evenly with favourites Tyrone being grateful in the end to escape with a two- point victory and a first provincial title in five years.

They overcame a three-point deficit at half-time, 1-5 to 1-8, to win in the end but Cavan had more than enough chances to turn the result.

Their recurring difficulty in taking opportunities accurately again worked against them and they now set sail for the qualifiers.

In that round, they go into the hat with Saturday's victorious quartet of Galway, Sligo, Derry and Westmeath, Connacht finalists Mayo and next weekend's losers from the Kerry-Cork and Dublin-Meath provincial finals.

The draw will be made next Sunday night together with the draw for the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals featuring Galway, Limerick, Wexford and next week's Ulster final winners.