Kerry's Sam Maguire challenge exploded into life with a double-scores rout of 2021 winners Tyrone at Croke Park.
That they laid waste to their old rivals' championship's hopes, gaining a little bit of revenge for the 2021 semi-final defeat in the process, will have pleased the Kingdom faithful no end.
Truth be told, this wasn't even Kerry at their very best, yet they still tore an out-of-sorts Tyrone asunder, with goals from Diarmuid O'Connor and Sean O'Shea.
The Munster champions were terrific in the second half, outscoring Tyrone by 2-09 to 0-06, and while Paudie Clifford was sent off for two bookings in stoppage time, along with his marker Conor Meyler, it was a minor blip.
O'Shea finished with 1-05 for Kerry while O'Connor registered 1-02 from midfield with David Clifford, despite hitting 0-05 overall, surprisingly wasting seven good scoring opportunities over the 70 minutes.
Kerry approached the quarter-finals as the highest scoring team in the round-robin stage from the eight teams left in the championship, averaging 24.3 points per match.
Tyrone fired just 16.25 points per game in their group and the quarter-final encounter followed that pattern, with Kerry hitting the interval three clear, 0-09 to 0-06.
All week, the talk in both counties was of the potential match-ups and it turned out to be as follows; Jason Foley on Darren McCurry and Tom O'Sullivan on Darragh Canavan.
Mattie Donnelly wore number 14 and was picked up by Graham O'Sullivan but that individual battle played out mainly around the middle third.
Kerry half-back Paul Murphy did his best to keep tabs on Ruairi Canavan.
Tyrone dropped Meyler, wearing number 10, back into their defence to pick up Paudie Clifford and they operated with Michael O'Neill as an extra defender. That left Tadgh Morley as Kerry's spare defender.
David Clifford was marked by Tyrone captain Padraig Hampsey, Ronan McNamee was assigned to track Paul Geaney while Michael McKernan picked up Sean O'Shea.
The two Clifford brothers found themselves in the wars; David getting up close and personal with Hampsey early on and Paudie enduring a running battle with Meyler.
In scoring terms, Kerry led for the majority of the first half and even though David Clifford fired two wides and dropped two point attempts short, he still sniped three points in that half.
Paudie got away from his man for a score too while O'Sullivan dropped another over on the stiff breeze at the Davin End.
Tyrone got it back to level terms on a couple of occasions at 0-05 and 0-06 apiece, but a strong finish to the first half from Kerry yielded scores from David Clifford and O'Connor and that three-point interval lead.
They stretched the margin to five after the restart, following pointed frees from David Clifford and O'Shea.
Adrian Spillane blasted over his second of the game from close range in the 42nd minute and suddenly Kerry had doubled their advantage to a six-point lead, 0-12 to 0-06.
There was a turning point of sorts shortly after when a Tyrone goal chance from a quick free to the unmarked O'Neill came to nought and Kerry went down the other end and engineered another point for O'Shea.
Kerry almost pinched a goal in the 46th minute themselves when Geaney blasted a shot at Niall Morgan but they settled for an O'Shea point from the resulting '45, leaving them eight points ahead.
O'Connor put the outcome beyond doubt when he fired their 54th-minute goal following great work in the build-up by substitute Tony Brosnan, amounting to a 1-05 scoring blitz from the Kingdom.
Brosnan had a hand in Kerry's second goal too, which was dispatched by O'Shea, though the lasting memory was David Clifford's sumptuous volleyed pass in the build-up from the left sideline, just as he looked set to be crunched by two Tyrone defenders.
Cathal McShane fired two points from the bench for Tyrone but they were in no position to rescue the game, which petered out to an inevitable conclusion.
Kerry: Shane Ryan; Graham O'Sullivan, Jason Foley, Tom O'Sullivan (0-01); Tadhg Morley, Paul Murphy, Gavin White; Diarmuid O'Connor (1-02), Jack Barry; Dara Moynihan, Sean O'Shea (1-05, 0-02f), Adrian Spillane (0-02); Paudie Clifford (0-01), David Clifford (0-05, 0-03f, 0-01m), Paul Geaney (0-01).
Subs: Stephen O'Brien (0-01) for Spillane 51, Tony Brosnan for Geaney 51, Brian O Beaglaoich for White 58, Micheal Burns for Moynihan 59, Mike Breen for Foley 64.
Tyrone: Niall Morgan; Ronan McNamee, Padraig Hampsey, Conor Meyler; Michael O'Neill; Peter Harte, Michael McKernan (0-01), Cormac Quinn; Brian Kennedy, Conn Kilpatrick; Mattie Donnelly (0-01), Ruairi Canavan (0-02), Kieran McGeary; Darragh Canavan (0-02), Darren McCurry (0-04, 0-04f).
Subs: Frank Burns for Quinn 34, Cathal McShane (0-02) for R Canavan 45, Joe Oguz for McGeary 45, Sean O'Donnell for Donnelly 64, Aidan Clarke for Hampsey 67.
Referee: Brendan Cawley (Kildare).
