Well, something had to give. Sadly, it was Irish luck. World Cup Qualifying Group 4 had become a byword for tedium and then, voila! Tom Humphries reports from Lansdowne Road.
Two-thirds of the way to another stalemate, one rapier thrust from Thierry Henry of France consigned Ireland to their first defeat of the campaign.
Sweeping in an elegant shot from outside the Irish penalty area, Henry duly changed the shape of the challenge facing Brian Kerr's team. With just two games left Ireland are depending on the kindness of rivals.
For a few moments Lansdowne Road absorbed that realisation in shocked silence before rallying for some singing and chanting. It all had the air of a last hurrah, though. Irish voices are unlikely to be heard at next summer's World Cup in Germany.
Before last night 10 out of the 22 games in this group had been drawn and all the matches between the top four sides, Ireland, France, Israel and Switzerland, had failed to produce a winner. Ireland blinked first and in the end the French celebrated exultantly.
What a satisfying but bemusing short break it must have been for the French. They arrived to find that our sensibilities had been scalded because Monsieur Domenech their manager had alleged our play lacked, well, panache.
By the time that it was yielded that, okay, okay, yes, the Irish have panache too, we didn't care anyway. We were bickering among ourselves over how much lager and karaoke constitutes the correct professional preparation for big games. Cliches were being sulkily withheld from the Irish media in Lansdowne last night, though we briefly remembered our duties as hosts and as underdogs.
We helped the French with their national anthem "Dum de Doo. Dum de Dah" we sang, a lusty chorus of 33,000 Homer Simpsons. And then we boohed and whistled every panache-laden touch the French had. And we played the rousing helter skelter football of old.
Irish efforts didn't lack passion but what guile there was belonged to the visitors. Apart from Henry's magical goal the best chances of the evening had a Gallic flavour. Zidane prodded and probed. Viera was elegant. In the end Ireland could bring on only Gary Doherty and Ian Harte for inspiration. The game was up.
The French played their complete trinity of returned musketeers, with the learned Lilian Thuram, the doughty Claude Makelele and the wondrous Zinedine Zidane all lining out. Their return from collective retirement and the instant restoration of the captain's armband to Zidane's arm had raised questions about morale in the French camp.
One for all or all for one? If there were fissures they didn't show. Even with the Irish throwing everything forward after the French goal there was little to cheer about. The visitors expected blood and thunder and gave the same.
Roy Keane did enough to earn himself the sentimental vote as Man of the Match but a booking, his second of the campaign, rules him out of the next instalment of Ireland's adventure.
Let's hope for something crazy.