Watching the fare on Saturday evening and then the thriller in Derry, you could only be enthused at the shape Gaelic football is taking under the new rules.
And then we watched the grim scenes from MacHale Park...
The second half in Castlebar carried uncomfortable echoes of our era of dominance in the early-to-mid 2010s - except with the roles flipped.
Back in the 2011-15 period when Mayo were dominating Connacht and Galway were stuck in mid-table in Division 2, it always felt like we had extra gears to deploy against them.
We were serenely confident and knew we could swat them away without too much difficulty. We could up the tempo at any stage and they couldn't live with it.
It's funny how things work in cycles. The Mayo-Galway rivalry has usually been tit-for-tat down the years, with one team having the edge but with the other always liable to take them down. Sometimes, however, one team will establish complete superiority like we did in James Horan's first stint.
Looking at the ease at which Galway strolled to the win in the second half on Sunday, the sense is that the reverse is occurring right now.
In terms of physicality, confidence and the smoothness of their play, it was like watching a genuine All-Ireland contender playing against a team struggling to hang off the edge of the elite.
Too alarmist from a Mayo perspective? Well, to be fair, there are caveats in that Mayo are short a fair few players at the moment. Last summer, they led by two going into injury-time in the Connacht final in Salthill and it was only a late push and a very dubious free on the second-last play which saw Galway over the line.
While Cillian O'Connor, James Carr and others are opting out for the season, we still have the Crossmolina contingent, as well as Aidan O'Shea and Tommy Conroy, to return to the fold.
Whether their absence accounts for a 10-point loss to a Galway side, who are rotating their squad themselves, is a very questionable claim.
Galway supporters could add here that they were hauled over the coals after early season league performances last year when they were completely decimated by injuries.
One worry is Mayo seem to be adapting very slowly to the new rules. They were pinged a couple of times for failing to keep to the 3v3 rule, which cost 0-04 with Galway carrying the free back outside the arc. (Oisín Gallen and Shane McGuigan lost their gamble by missing the two-point efforts in similar circumstances but Shane Walsh and co keep nailing theirs, for the time being anyway).
That will irk Kevin McStay no end. Anyone who recalls Kevin from his days on the RTÉ couch will know he nearly carries a rule-book around with him full-time.
They were slow to twig the Galway throw-in gambit of stationing Shane Walsh on the sideline, which resulted in two-point opportunities at the start of either half. He missed the first one and scored from the second. Then for his second two-pointer later in the game, he was allowed a criminal amount of space to wind up for the shot. There was no urgency to get outside the arc to pressure the kick.
The contrast down the other end was pretty stark. Galway scored seven two-pointers on Sunday alone. Mayo have now scored just one two-pointer across their two matches so far.
It's not for the want of trying. They've been taking enough shots, they're just not going over. Which is probably the most worrying thing of all. Paul Towey's effort late in the first half is our only orange flag in 140 minutes of football.
Would the absent players make a difference in that regard? Jordan Flynn should be decent from two-point range and certainly won't be shy of taking them on. Jack Carney should be able to land a few when he's in the mood.
Anyone else? Tommy Conroy is more of a sniping inside forward and I'm not sure scoring from beyond the arc would be his forte. Aidan O'Shea has been in cracking form but he wouldn't be renowned as a point-taker.
Ryan O'Donoghue was playing on Sunday but couldn't manage even a single-pointer from play against the sticky marking of Johnny McGrath. That's two league games so far where Mayo's leading inside forward has struggled to influence the game. Mayo's attack can't afford to have him shackled.
There's no clamour to change the two-point arc, at least for scores from play. It looks like it's here to stay and it's an area Mayo need to improve on. It's only early February but they have work to do.
On top of everything, there was more bad press as a fan senselessly ran on to shove the ref Noel Mooney after we got hammered. Bob Touhy deserves some credit for intervening.
It's night and day from a Galway perspective and Padraic Joyce looked a contented man in his post-match interview.
The early evidence is that they're purring nicely and the rules are to their advantage. Not just from the two-point arc where they have the shooters to make hay. Arguably, the new kickout regulations are an even bigger boon to them.
Before the rule changes, Galway were fonder of long kickouts than most. Joyce and his management team refreshingly took the view that maintaining possession by clipping the ball wide to your corner back on his own 21 was overrated. The real rewards were to be claimed by winning the ball higher up the pitch, even if they were sacrificing a degree of possession by doing so.
Even in last year's All-Ireland final, which Joyce says they'll regret to their last breath, their stats on long kickout retentions were phenomenal. It was their shooting that let them down that day.
Off the six clean catches they took on Sunday, they got scores off all of them.
Short-ish kickouts carry a greater risk in the new dispensation. A couple of times against the wind, Mayo clipped a couple of short ones wide to the corner back just beyond the arc. But they were pressed high and with no option to pass back to the goalkeeper, they got hemmed in quickly.
With long kickouts and contested possession in the middle third now back in vogue thanks to the FRC, this should play into Galway's hands - literally and figuratively.
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