National Football League/Fermanagh 0-9 Tyrone 0-8: We forget sometimes that the All-Ireland champions rarely start out the new season the way they finished the last.
But even allowing for a delayed hangover it's still hard to explain Tyrone's dramatic loss of form.
They came into the league in seemingly fine spirits, riding high in the McKenna Cup, only to fall so ungracefully to Dublin a week ago. Yesterday they suffered an equally convincing loss to Fermanagh, scoring only two points late in the second half and lacking any of the killer instinct that defined their glorious run last summer.
Tyrone in fact ended the game chasing an equalising point and it would have been a great injustice to Fermanagh if they had got it. The home team played with Tyrone every step of the first half and then broke determinedly free in the second, thus making it two wins from two games (they beat Monaghan in round one), a dream start to the new season for manager Charlie Mulgrew.
It wasn't a soft win either, and while Tyrone started out with the innocence of Little Red Riding Hood - clearly intent on avoiding any repeat of last Sunday - no one was backing out of tackles towards the end. Tyrone, in other words, were beaten fair and square.
They weren't helped when they lost Brian McGuigan in the opening minutes after he hit his knee off concrete dangerously close to the sideline. Owen Mulligan was called in as his replacement but looked a million miles from the form displayed in Croke Park last summer, and one wonders how he manages such extremes.
Seán Cavanagh wasn't up to speed either, while Kevin Hughes marked his return to midfield with some dire shooting. More worryingly, Stephen O'Neill still looks half the player he was this time last year, kicking 0-4 of Tyrone's total while never exerting his usual influence among the forwards. But then Tyrone had trouble with all the Fermanagh players, starting with Barry Owens at full back.
Owens epitomised the intense will-to-win of Fermanagh. Two defenders, Shane Goan and Shane McDermott, stormed forward to hit defining scores and that too summed up their spirit.
Though they trailed 0-6 to 0-4 at half-time, McDermott drew them level on 45 minutes and they never looked back. Ciarán O'Reilly and substitute Mark Little helped them keep their noses in front, and in the end it seemed they'd truly mastered the All-Ireland champions.
Still, it takes more than two defeats in the league to ruffle Mickey Harte and the Tyrone manager was typically philosophical. In fact the last thing he was about to blame it on was the All-Ireland hangover.
"I don't see that as an issue at all," he said. "We've played some good football already this year, albeit in a different competition, so if the hangover was still there we should have seen it then. I certainly wouldn't hang it on that.
"But the league is a higher-level competition now, with more teams wanting a slice of the action. Fermanagh wanted a slice of it today, maybe more than we did."
Yet they started well, hitting 0-2 before Fermanagh got off their blocks. And while possession - and the high rate of errors - was evenly balanced for the rest of the half, Tyrone's two-point lead at the break should have been the platform for victory.
"Well, there'll be days like that, as the song says," added Harte. "But you can't take anything away from Fermanagh. They did not make it easy for us. You can put teams away if they're prepared to lie down and don't battle for every ball. But Fermanagh weren't like that today."
Conditions were slippery, but unlike last week, Tyrone always kept their hands where they should be. Ryan McMenamin was booked after 11 minutes and was followed by four others yet never did their game come close to the indiscipline of last week. Again Harte dismissed that as having any bearing.
"No, last week is history now as far as I'm concerned. We needed the two points today, but we went out to win the same way we always do. I mean there were plenty of strong encounters there, and no one looked sideways. The game was played at as hectic a pace as last week, so I don't think anyone held back, saying they can't go there because that's not right. They played the game the way they wanted it played."
Mulgrew, meanwhile, was typically relaxed: "Of course we're happy with four points from two games, and having played quite well in both. It's good to have that platform going into the next stage of the league.
"We'll just come again after the break and try again to get another two points."
FERMANAGH: C Breen; N Bogue, B Owens, S Goan (0-1); R Johnston, S McDermott (0-1), P Sherry; M Murphy, F O'Reilly; D Kelly, J Sherry (0-2), T Brewster (0-1, a free); C O'Reilly (0-3), J McGurn, R Keenan. Subs: E Maguire for McGurn (25 mins), S Doherty for O'Reilly (half time, inj), M Little (0-1) for Kelly (48 mins), Kelly for Keenan (55 mins, inj), H Brady for Bogue (72 mins).
TYRONE: P McConnell; R McMenamin, C McGinley, C Gourley; D Harte, C Gormley, A Ball; B Meenan, K Hughes; M Murphy, B McGuigan, S Cavanagh (0-2, one free); M Penrose (0-1), S O'Neill (0-4, two frees), R Mellon. Subs: O Mulligan for McGuigan (4 mins, inj), P Donnelly (0-1) for Murphy (53 mins), D Carlin for Mellon (67 mins), J Mahon for Gormley (68 mins).
Referee: J McKee (Armagh).
