ONE of the longest standing records in Irish sport came to an end after yesterday's Railway Cup football semi final replay in Ennis when Brian McEniff's Ulster team finally lost a match in the championship. In pursuit of their seventh successive title, the holders went down to their first defeat since 1988.

After the fireworks of the drawn encounter in Clones last week, yesterday's match was a little subdued, despite its momentous conclusion. Nonetheless, it was closely contested and had all the appearances of heading for another spell of extra time when Kerry's Dara O Cinneide struck over a minute into injury time to ease Munster ahead and Ulster out of the championship they have dominated.

There was some irony in this as the same player looked to have blown his team's last chance when he sent a 45 wide at the very end of normal time. One last attack, however, broke the deadlock and a powerful solo from Sean Burke at centre back carried the ball right up to the Ulster goal. He decided to lay it off to O Cinneide, wisely counting on his Kerry colleague's more recognised powers of finishing.

It was a frustrating way for the champions to lose but in truth they could have been beaten far more convincingly if Munster hadn't wasted a number of goal chances, partly through ineptitude but largely because of some fine work in the Ulster goal by Finbarr McConnell. Before the throw in, Munster made a couple of changes to the selected line up. Cork's Ciaran O'Sullivan and Steven O'Brien started at left corner back and centre forward respectively with Clare's Kieran O'Mahoney and Martin Daly dropping out.

In a rejigged attack, Joe Kavanagh moved from the 40 to the right corner and O Cinneide switched over to the left corner.

The opening exchanges were hair raising stuff for the northerners. As early as the first minute, Brian Burke was put through only for McConnell to save at close range. This was quickly followed by a Kavanagh point that could have been a goal and in the fourth minute Clare's Francis McInerney drew a pointblank save from the besieged Tyrone goalkeeper.

For all the early pressure, Munster had little enough to show. By the fifth minute, the score was 0-2 to 0-1 in their favour after Mickey Linden opened Ulster's scoring with a trademark piece of elusiveness. Ulster had six first half wides but they stayed in touch and while Munster produced the flashier football, the scoreline read only 0-5 to 0-3 after 20 minutes when Ronan Carolan pointed a tree.

This triggered a productive spell for the champions as Stephen King, Seamus Downey and Tony Boyle (restored to his more effective full forward role after starting at centre forward) took good points to bring Ulster into the lead.

A typically thrusting run up from wing back by Seamus Moynihan merely drew the statutory blinding save from McConnell and the teams swapped points before going in at the interval with Munster trailing 0-6 to 0-7, for all their opportunity.

Ulster looked a little indifferent to proceedings but Martin McQuillan added a point in the first attack of the second half and they maintained the two point lead for the opening five minutes.

But then the match began to turn. Two fine scores from O Cinneide and McInerney levelled the match and Paidi O Se, on the Munster bench, made an adjustment sending on Peter Lambert for Donie Fitzgibbon.

Lambert's introduction made sense in that he is a proven scorer and his presence rattled Ulster a bit and he contributed a fisted point to justify his presence.

By the end of the third quarter, the sides were level again and most people appeared resigned to extra time. Even the players began to reduce the volume of the game and only two points were, scored in the remainder of normal time.

Then, with three minutes left, Kieran McGeeney ranged up from centre back to wipe out the advantage Munster had established through Kavanagh.

O Cinneide's late contribution gave Munster a deserved win and it was fitting that he should get the score after an afternoon during which he served up some fine points among his haul of five, including four from play.