Cork’s season goes on while Roscommon’s grinds to a halt, following Cork’s nerve-wracking two-point victory in the key All-Ireland SFC Group 2 clash at Laois Hire O’Moore Park in Portlaoise on Saturday. Cork failed to score a single goal in their entire Group 2 campaign, with Chris Óg Jones’ effort in the Munster semi-final against Kerry being the only green flag John Cleary’s side have raised in this campaign. Plenty of chances were spurned in both clashes against Kerry and this was on show in Portlaoise again, with Cork being guilty of blasting three goal opportunities over the Roscommon crossbar in the first half. Sean McDonnell had the first of these in the 10th minute with St. Finbarr’s Ian Maguire then doing likewise as he found acres of space in front of goal in the 27th and 33rd minutes only for his efforts to go too high. Directness: Cork are noted for their slow build-up play but on Saturday they were visibly looking to move the ball quickly to their dangermen, and especially so when they turned Roscommon over. Possibly the best illustration of this came in the 31st minute when Sean Walsh seemed to get himself isolated in the right corner, which invited the full Roscommon press. The Mitchelstown man brilliantly used his pace to evade the would-be tacklers and played a crossfield ball to Mattie Taylor, who himself had to get the ball quickly to avoid being smothered. Taylor’s pass found clubmate Sean McDonnell, who in turn moved it forward to Brian Hurley and after briefly holding the ball up the Cork attackers fed the supporting McDonnell, who beautifully curled it over, for what was the second of four brilliant scores from the Mallow man. Midfield battle: Cork selected Ian Maguire, Colm O’Callaghan and Sean Walsh in the starting 15 with the aim of wrestling control around the middle. In the first half that strategy worked on Roscommon’s kick-outs as the Rossies only won five of 11 restarts, but it was a similar story down the other end as Cork only managed to get their hands on four of Micheál Aodh Martin’s long kick-outs in the opening 35 minutes. Cork got complete control of this battle in the middle of the second half and they made it count with four excellent scores from play in the space of five minutes to stretch their lead out to six. While Roscommon did get to grips with the aerial battle late on, to put the frighteners on Cork, the dominance of O’Callaghan and Maguire during this key juncture meant that the Connacht men just had too much to do. In the first half Cork were regular enough in terms of their score accumulation, with the longest they went without registering a score being the seven minutes between minutes 12 and 19. Down the other end Roscommon twice went more than ten minutes without scoring in the opening half, with the second of those being from minute 21 to half time, where crucially Cork kicked five points, which allowed to lead by four at the break. Cork picked the wrong time to have their one mini fadeout, as they failed to score for thirteen minutes from minutes 54 to 67, with Roscommon kicking four in a row to get themselves right back into the tie. Thankfully Cathail O’Mahony slotted brilliantly in traffic late on to give Cork a two-point lead for the last few minutes. Cork can thank Meath pair Ruairi Kinsella and Sean Rafferty for their late heroics in the Round 2 clash between Meath and Roscommon as Kinsella kicked the equaliser in that game for the Royals while Rafferty put in a brilliant last-ditch block to deny Roscommon’s Ben O’Carroll a late winner for Roscommon. That result meant that Cork knew that a win would see them through here. It would probably have been a very different ending only for those big moments, which were, of course, completely out of Cork’s control. Late drama: Martin punched Enda Smith’s late two-pointer attempt out for a 45, when Cork hearts would have been in their mouths, as both sides knew that a late orange or green flag for Roscommon would have meant it was curtains for Cork’s season. Considering Roscommon landed five two-pointers in their draw with Meath, it was a live possibility. Thankfully Colm O’Callaghan got a paw to the last-gasp attempt to draw the game, with the ball falling into the grateful arms of Sean Powter, who kicked the ball dead rugby-style to spark the Cork celebrations.