By half-time yesterday some of us realised that we had skated all the way to Clones on the thin ice of our own prejudices.

You see we yomped northwards carrying glib expectations strapped to our laptops. Crossmaglen Rangers would win. Errigal Ciarain would be a mere star vehicle, Peter Canavan plus dancing girls. There would be a big fight and much tut-tutting.

Just on the stroke of half-time Canavan scored his first point of the afternoon giving Errigal ain a fivepoint lead. In the press box we noted the scorer's name down with the warm surprise we might bestow on an old acquaintance back for the Christmas. We had hardly noticed his slender statistical contribution.

By the time the teams were heading for their tea break Eoin Gormley, the 22-year-old Errigal full forward, had scored 1-5 and had missed a handful as well. Canavan was bobbing and floating like a silver decoy around a very sharp hook indeed. Crossmaglen just kept rising to the bait.

Gormley destroyed a succession of markers yesterday and his team-mates had the good sense to leave him with open prairies to work in. His accuracy and not his proficiency was all that made him special, though. Errigal had a quiver full of arrows.

Peter Canavan was calmly authoritative, full back Eamon McGinley had an excellent game, Pascal Canavan issued a series of wise passes and Eamon Kavanagh was inspirational from wing back.

It's not so much that All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen performed beneath themselves. For a team which have been on the road for so long they got perhaps as much out of themselves as they could. Errigal were just too snappish and hungry yesterday.

Crossmaglen had the usual bag of tricks. Colm O'Neill's huge frame was shifted from corner forward to midfield and they dominated that sector for long periods. The McConville brothers buzzed waspishly and Cathal Short quietly got through his usual mountain of work. Good things,

but not enough of them. Crossmaglen were on their way to their first defeat in 74 games.

Crossmaglen were good but they weren't cutting edge. They hadn't the tactical variety or attacking verve to stay with Errigal yesterday.

Take Errigal's goal after just four minutes: A remarkable weave of passes from Ciaran McCrory to Eamon Kavanagh, to Peter Canavan, to Brian Neill and finally to Gormley for the assassin's cold finish.

That was the gist of the tune and Crossmaglen would soon become sick of hearing it. Errigal had the sharpness of a buzz saw around midfield. They won little in the air but snapped everything else up. More ingeniously, they managed to vary their attacks right through the game. While Canavan ran in loops, Gormley stood tall, as a big luminous target man. They hit Gormley earlier, they threaded slowly through Canavan, they soloed relentlessly themselves.

Resistance came in the stout form of John McEntee, the Crossmaglen midfielder who scored a string of splendid points. Ahead of him the McConvilles worked hard but there was a tentativeness to Crossmaglen which betrayed them.

They were five points down at the break, having scored the last two points of the half. Errigal came out and produced the first two scores of the second half (both through Gormley), however, and from then on the gradient looked too sharp for Crossmaglen.

They put the work in, though. McEntee was inspirational. Between himself and Oisin McConville they almost pulled out an unlikely result.

Fifteen minutes into the second half it almost finished. Seamus Mallon sneaked it to Pascal Canavan, who dispatched a brilliant ball to Gormley. He shrugged off two challenges with neat dummies and thumped a shot against the crossbar which flew up and over for a point.

With seven minutes left Crossmaglen surprised even themselves perhaps with a goal which might have acted as the rallying call, but instead marked their last stand. Tony McEntee squeezed the ball to Jim McConville, who got his kick in from an acute angle before being deposited on the seat of his pants. He was already bouncing up again when the ball dribbled over the line at the far post.

They were spent however. Gormley and John Cunningham swapped points to finish it out and the curtain fell.

A crowd of 11,177 took a solemn vow to return for the final back in Clones in a fortnight's time. Brolly and McGonigle versus Gormley and Canavan. Who wouldn't want to be there?