There was something uncomfortably voyeuristic about watching yesterday's All-Ireland football final in Croke Park, writes Tom Humphries in Croke Park.
Mayo, who travelled with their usual cocktail of hope and expectation, were shredded in the opening 10 minutes. Kerry, confident and focused just kept going.
It seemed indecent to take pleasure from watching the infliction of such humiliation. Kerry were 10 points ahead in almost as many minutes having pillaged goals in the sixth and eighth minutes. Barring divine intervention the game was over right then. Hopes for the viability of the second half were briefly raised when Mayo scored two goals late in the first half, but Mayo never scored from play again. The final 30 minutes were played if not in silence then certainly in an embarrassed hush.
Kerry answered all the questions early on. Had they been justified in recalling their young captain Declan O'Sullivan? His inclusion had provoked ripples of dissent in Kerry but he scored Kerry's first goal after six minutes and ended all discussion.
Questions. Was the architect of Kerry's resurrection this summer, one Kieran Donaghy, the real deal or a welcome flash in the pan? He pulled the ball from the sky after eight minutes and crashed it home for Kerry's second. Donaghy's nickname before this magical summer was Star. He may be forced to consider welding on the word super, as a prefix.
Yesterday's win also provides three greats of the game with a sufficient number of baubles to guarantee them a lifetime of respect, even in Kerry. Darragh Ó Sé, Séamus Moynihan and Mike Frank Russell all won their fourth All-Irelands and were handed the keys to the pantheon washroom.
As for Mayo, this was the county's fifth All-Ireland final defeat in less than 20 years and even by the depressing standards of western failure easily the most dispiriting.
"Back to the drawing board," said their coach John Morrison as the glinting Sam Maguire Cup was being carried high down the Croke Park corridor towards the Kerry dressing room, a journey which it could almost make independently by now.