We had waited a long time for it. Five years, in fact, since teams representing the two football leagues on this island had come face to face with each other. Even so, given how recently the performances of the Dublin clubs in European football had boosted southern football's collective self-respect, it was probably a bit too soon to be let down with such a bump.
The setting didn't help for, while the storm clouds are surely gathering over one north-south meeting this week, during last night's in Terryland Park they were giving it everything they had for the bulk of the 90 minutes.
In the circumstances, the game might have easily have been dreadful - instead, for the hosts at least, it was just very, very disappointing. On balance, the Irish League deserved their win although Dermot Keely will certainly have had a loud word in the ears of the many players who contributed blunders to the goals.
Initially, it seemed that David Jeffrey's side would do well simply to hold their own, for the home side gave their defence a tough time of it and were nearly rewarded when Richie Baker, Colm Tresson and Richie Foran linked up neatly to create what would, but for a fractional offside, have been the game's opening goal.
At that stage, it all looked promising, but, when two subsequent opportunities were both squandered due to poor first touches by Foran and Baker respectively, there was always the chance the northerners would take advantage of the let-offs.
Sure enough they took the lead just after the half-hour when a harmless looking long free-kick was bungled by Steve Williams and then deflected by Peter Hutton into the path of Vinny Arkins who side-footed nonchalantly home.
Then, after Hutton got away with a fairly blatant mauling of Arkins inside the box in the second period, the Derry captain was one of perhaps four National League men who contributed to Mark Rutherford's goal.
In the end, there was an element of bad luck because the shot took a bad deflection off Clive Delaney on the way over Williams, but the defending was still dreadfully poor.
Reviving the fixture, though, was supposedly the main priority for all concerned and some talks concerning a new all Ireland competition were held prior to the kick off so the night will probably go down as having been a success. Dermot Keely and his players, of course, might see it all a little differently.
National League: Williams (Shelbourne); Heary (Shelbourne), Delaney (UCD), Hutton (Derry City), Minnock (Finn Harps); R Baker (Shelbourne), Tresson (Bray Wanderers), Doherty (Derry City), Keddy (Shelbourne); Foran (Shelbourne), Lavine (Galway United). Subs: Byrne (Bray Wanderers) for Foran (half-time), Kavanagh (UCD) for Tresson (52 mins), Byrne (Shamrock Rovers) for Keddy (62), Morley (Cork City) for Lavine and Kelly (Derry City) for Delaney (69).
Irish League: Mathers (Linfield); Nixon (Glentoran), Devine (Coleraine), W Murphy (Linfield), Walker (Glentoran); McCallion (Cliftonville), Gorman (Linfield), McAllister (Coleraine), D Murphy (Glenavon); Ferguson (Linfield), Arkins (Portadown). Subs: Gough (Glentoran) for Mathers (half-time), Rutherford (Newry Town) for W Murphy (54 mins), McBride (Glentoran) for McCallion (58), Casey (Newry Town) for Gorman (62), Morgan (Linfield) for Ferguson (72).
Referee: A Snoddy (Belfast).
