Rebels comfortably see off below par Treaty

plain for all to see, and the fact that their six starting forwards registered just a point from play between them tells its own story.

Midfielder Darragh Treacy did make a few probing runs from midfield in the first half, but that amounted to the height of the pressure the Shannonsiders exerted on the Cork rearguard before the break.

The pattern of the game was set fairly quickly, with Mark Collins and Colm O’Neill, from a free, bagging points at either side of O’Neill’s aborted penalty to put Limerick on the backfoot straightaway.

Darragh Treacy did get Limerick off the mark in the 10th minute but Alan O’Connor pulled the resultant kick-out from the clouds before parting to Paul Kerrigan, who placed Mark Collins for his second fisted point, and Cork more or less ran the show from there.

Playing well within themselves, they had stretched the gap to seven points by the 24th minute, and after Limerick finally strung a couple of scores together, Mark Collins and Colm O’Neill combined to create an opening that allowed Paul Kerrigan to give Cork an unflattering 1-6 to 0-4 lead at the break.

Limerick never threatened to make a fight of it in the second half when they had to wait until the 53rd minute to add to their tally, courtesy of a point from substitute Ian Corbett.

In the interim Paul Kerrigan, twice, and substitute John O’Rourke, were on target for Cork, who remained firmly in the driving seat before good work Mark Collins and substitutes Paddy Kelly and John O’Rourke enabled Kerrigan to embellish the victory with a second goal near the end.

In truth, it was largely a meaningless exercise in terms of assessing whether Cork have polished up their act significantly since their shock defeat by Tipperary in the Munster championship, but at least they produced a performance that was more than sufficient to meet the demands of the day.