NFL PLAYOFFS : Cowboys Hold All of the Cards : NFC: Dallas gambles on pass play during fourth quarter and pulls away to a 30-20 victory over 49ers.

Through rain and mud, taking risks and laughing about them afterward, the Dallas Cowboys completed their roll through the NFC on Sunday.

And along the way to their 30-20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers before 64,920 at Candlestick Park, Dallas gave every indication that its reign as the conference’s elite team will not be a short one.

Next up for them is Super Bowl XXVII at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 31, and the Cowboys accepted their berth in the game as if they knew it was their destiny.

“Getting to that (Super Bowl) level doesn’t mean a thing,” Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson said. “Just like getting to the (collegiate) national championship game doesn’t mean anything.

“Sure, right now, getting to the Super Bowl is a nice feeling, but the only way you really taste the ecstasy of winning is to actually win the championship.”

This was an echo of the title game 11 years ago when the 49ers and Dwight Clark beat Dallas with “The Catch,” beginning San Francisco’s four-Super Bowl reign and symbolizing the end of Dallas’ Tom Landry as Cowboy coach.

“We don’t really know what the future holds in the next few years,” linebacker Ken Norton Jr. said. “We only know that right now, our future is the Super Bowl.

“And the 49ers will be watching us on TV.”

The 49ers probably lost their best chances during the first half, when a holding call on guard Guy McIntyre erased a long touchdown pass from Steve Young to Jerry Rice on their first possession, and when two 49er fumbles set up Dallas’ first 10 points.

After the 10-10 first half, Dallas scored touchdowns on its first two second-half possessions against a defense that blitzed heavily, but could not handle the variety of Cowboy offensive weapons.

Tailback Emmitt Smith was the main cog in those drives, cutting smoothly on the newly resodded Candlestick turf for 114 yards in 24 rushes and 59 yards on seven catches. He scored once rushing and once receiving.

Wasn’t he supposed to have problems in the wet Candlestick weather?

“Problems?” Smith said sarcastically. “I don’t have problems running.”

After taking a 24-13 lead, Dallas didn’t panic when Steve Young brought the 49ers to within 24-20 on a Joe Montana-style touchdown drive. Instead, the Cowboys broke the game open late in the fourth quarter with a roll of the dice on the next play.

“A lot of people would have been conservative,” said 49er Coach George Seifert, “but they took chances. And it worked for them.”

The result, risking an interception, was a 70-yard Troy Aikman-to-Alvin Harper pass play that clinched their first Super Bowl berth in 14 years.

“That’s the great thing about Jimmy Johnson,” said Cowboy offensive coordinator Norv Turner, who called the play. “He’s going to play to win.

“It’s not, ‘Hey, run the ball, make sure we work the clock.’ It’s, ‘Hey, we don’t get first downs, we’re not going to win.’ And if you do that, sometimes you get fortunate and sometimes you make the big play.”

Harper beat cornerback Don Griffin off the line of scrimmage in single-coverage, and Aikman, who completed 24 for 34 passes for 322 yards, hit him in stride about 10 yards down field. Harper cut up the middle of the field all the way to the 49er 10-yard line. Three plays later, Aikman passed to Kelvin Martin for a touchdown.

And the Cowboys started celebrating.

“It started about four years ago,” said Johnson, who replaced Landry after the 1988 season, “when we started at rock bottom.”

Defensive tackle Russell Maryland, who played under Johnson at the University of Miami, said he knew exactly when it was Johnson was this pleased: “National championship, 1988, University of Miami. This is as happy as I’ve seen him since.”

The Cowboys said they didn’t want to talk about how they matched up against the Buffalo Bills--”We’ll think about Buffalo on the plane home,” Johnson said--but how they will approach Super Bowl XXVII was no secret.

“We’re going to play aggressive football,” Johnson said. “That’s our style. For better or worse, we’re going to be aggressive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Every time it counted Sunday, the Cowboys’ style worked.

On defense, although Young completed 25 of his 35 pass attempts for 313 yards, the Cowboys mixed up their coverages and put enough pressure on the scrambling quarterback to force two interceptions during the second half.

“I think the defense today spoke for itself,” Norton said. “We’ve been hearing a lot of stuff lately, but we were No. 1 for the last nine weeks of the season and today it was no different, was it?”

Those interceptions, plus the two 49er fumbles--one by tailback Ricky Watters that led to a Smith touchdown, one by punt returner Alan Grant that led to a field goal--contrasted with the Cowboys’ turnover-free performance.

“You work hard all year to win the championship,” said San Francisco running back Mark Logan, “and then you fall short of your goal. . . . We made the cake all year, but we didn’t put the icing on it.”

The 49ers have lost their last two NFC title games, also losing to the New York Giants at Candlestick Park after the 1990 season.

“You’ve got to play better in championship games than we did,” 49er tight end Brent Jones said.

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NFC Notes

Dallas tailback Emmitt Smith will be the first NFL rushing titlist to appear in a Super Bowl. “To win the rushing title and play in the Super Bowl, it’s just great,” Smith said. . . . Dallas earned a place in the record books Sunday with an unprecedented sixth trip to the Super Bowl. . . . The victories by Dallas and the Buffalo Bills marked the first time both home teams have lost in the conference championship games since 1966.