Dundalk 5-0 Derry City
Dundalk swept Derry City away at Oriel Park to restore their six point lead over Cork City at the top of the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division table.
Friday night's 1-0 defeat to St Pat's, coupled with Cork City's last-gasp win over Shamrock Rovers, meant that questions were being asked about Stephen Kenny's treble chasers.
Those questions were answered in style after just 12 seconds when Patrick Hoban won possession from young Shay Dunlop to slip Darren Meenan in for a tidy finish.
Derry City, who made seven changes to their side with Friday night's FAI Cup quarter-final with Drogheda United in mind, just couldn't contain the league leaders and Kurtis Byrne tapped home a Dane Massey cross from six-yards to make it 2-0 after 34 minutes.
Massey helped himself to number three, curling a terrific free-around the Derry City wall five minutes later to kill the game off before the half-time whistle.
Any notions that Dundalk might take the foot off the pedal were dismissed when Hoban's thumping effort was well saved by Ciaran Gallagher in the 46th minute.
The Dundalk striker fared better nine minutes later when he showed great strength to hold off Barry Molloy before hammering a low drive past the Derry goalkeeper from 20-yards.
Goal number five arrived in the 58th minute. Darren Meenan's corner from the right found Brian Gartland unmarked at the back post and he headed home his 10th of the season.
A 6-0 loss would have been a new club record for the Candystripes and Dundalk should have sent Hutton's side back to Foyleside with an unwanted place in the record books.
Kurtis Byrne was denied a second by Gallagher and soon after the Dundalk number 11 was threatening again, his vicious ball across the face of goal not given the finish it deserved.
The visitors rearguard was opened up at will and right-back Sean Gannon should have made it six when he broke through in the 77th minute but he opted to try and square it instead of beating Gallagher.
The closest Derry came to a consolation came in the 82nd minute when Joshua Tracey almost caught the otherwise redundant Peter Cherrie out with a shot which just whistled past the keeper's near post.
Dundalk: Cherrie; Gannon, Gartland, Boyle (Rossiter 55), Massey; Shields, Towell; Meenan, Byrne, Horgan (McDermott 58); Hoban (McMillan 77).
Derry City: Gallagher; Dunlop (Dooley 66), S McEleney, Kelly, Timlin; Molloy, McNamee (P McEleney 72), Houston; Tracey, Boyle, Curran.
Referee: Tomas Connolly.
Attendance: 2,171.
