At its conclusion Pat Spillane explained that "probably the better team drew today", a comment that was Keeganesque in its character and, consequently, went no distance towards explaining what happened at Semple Stadium on Saturday afternoon, where the protagonists treated us to a sporting blend of the X-Files and Tales of the Unexpected.
True, we know they don't make Dublin versus Kerry collisions like they used to anymore, but this replica model? Never mind the quality, feel the pulse. It had something that the 1970s prototype lacked too, a kindly willingness on the part of one of the teams to wait until the traffic-delayed crowd (victims of Operation No-Flow) was safely in the ground, in and around half-time, before they began to significantly trouble the scorekeeper.
Why else would Dublin so graciously have declined the offer of two open goals in the first half? "How in the name of God could you hit the crossbar from where he was standing," asked Tony Davis, reasonably enough, of Dessie Farrell's miss. "Let's not bring the Lord in to it," advised Ger Canning.
"Okay," 'Hill 16 on Tour' might have replied, "but do you mind if 'Jeeesus Christ Dessie' gets a mention?" At half time it was 1-5 to 0-3 for Kerry, Colm O'Rourke was describing the Dublin forward line as "a puff of smoke" and Michael Lyster was warning that "some viewers might find this upsetting - so look away now" before he replayed Farrell's miss.
"It was a magnificent achievement to hit the crossbar, if you tried all afternoon you wouldn't do it again - and Dessie's the best of their forwards," chuckled Pat.
One, of course, cannot assume to know how Tommy Carr motivated his players at half-time (although the guillotine might have come up in the conversation) but if he just left them to watch RT╔'s half-time analysis that might, possibly, account for their second half renaissance. There is, after all, nothing like derision to encourage a team to start putting points on the board.
Which they did. In the last half hour Dublin scored 2-6 to Kerry's four points and with mere seconds to go they led by a point and had the game, implausibly, won. But then Maurice Fitzgerald waved his wand at a sideline ball 45 metres out.
Its initial trajectory suggested that Dublin were going to be awarded a sideline ball on the opposite side of the pitch, but like a Roberto Carlos free-kick it boomeranged back towards its target, deceiving the crossbar in much the same fashion that Shane Warne has deceived English bats all summer.
Fitzgerald's kick (taken from the wrong side of the ground, too, for a right-footer, as Spillane pointed out)? Sublime? Yes, but sometimes words aren't enough. If he'd done it in training in front of two blackbirds and a Jack Russell it'd still have been marvellous, but in injury time in an All-Ireland quarter-final with the words "Your County Needs You" ringing in his ears? Inconceivable. Next time you bump in to Maurice Fitzgerald genuflect.
Next, Galway versus Roscommon. "Pathetic," sighed Colm. Pat fiercely disagreed: "Woeful. Dire". Both men were being generous. The less said the better. Move along.
Speaking of "woeful" and "dire", England's attempts at making a contest out of this summer's Ashes. (At this point I hope you might allow me to offer my condolences to an acquaintance who set about fulfilling a lifetime's sporting ambition last week, namely to see a day's play in an Ashes' test match, by booking a ticket for day four of the Trent Bridge test. And on what day did the Aussies wrap up the series? day three).
As Channel Four pundit and former New Zealand international Ian Smith put it after the second test, "England have played pretty well, it's just their cricket let them down". Hmm.
A similar line was used by Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the English Cricket Board, on Saturday. Was Lord MacLaurin to be found in his rightful place at Trent Bridge? No. At the Glorious Goodwood horse racing fest, oddly enough. "Why aren't you at the Test," he was asked.
"Because of my Vodaphone commitments," he explained, somewhat sheepishly ("and thanks be to Jaysus for Vodaphone," he muttered, inaudibly, under his breath).
Spare a thought, then, for Channel Four who are now left with two fairly meaningless Test matches to cover. Bad news for their crew, including Simon Hughes who experienced one of those "please ground, open up and swallow me" moments at tea-time last Thursday.
Interviewing Derek Randall, a former Nottinghamshire legend and the fidgiest batsman ever to play international cricket, Hughes bemoaned the fact that the Trent Bridge powers-that-be had yet to honour Randall by naming a bit of the ground after him.
"Surely in the future you must be commemorated in some way because you're unique to this ground," Hughes implored. Randall grinned. "You obviously don't spend much time walking around here, do you? They named a banqueting suite after me on the far end of the ground - it's been there for about 10 years."
"Oh," said Hughes, cheeks the shade of tomato ketchup.
At that point Hughes might have wished he was in the Sahara which, funnily enough (cue seamless link) is where Milosz, star of Turf Wars (BBC2, Friday), intended going last year when he left his Polish home. "That was the plan ... spend a couple of months in the Sahara ... drink champagne in New York ... meet the Dalai Lama in Tibet ... then travel on to Hong Kong for some good craic, but ...."
But? Miloz ended up in, well, Commonstown, Co Kildare where he works as a stable lad and dreams of becoming a jockey.
The eminently watchable Turf Wars, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a kind of horsey Big Brother, only the disenfranchised viewers don't get to vote for their favourite stable mates. Which is a pity because the mother of jockey Barry Geraghty would have romped home to victory last week after uttering this immortal line about her son: "He talks like a horse, he thinks like a horse, sometimes you'd think he WAS one the way he goes on".
Like a Maurice Fitzgerald sideline kick, 45 metres out, in injury time in an All-Ireland quarter-final it bowled the viewer over. So we know exactly how England's batting line-up feels.
