Comment: Last Leaders' Questions more sparring session than heavyweight bout
Harris Questions His Simon What Leaders' Be Taoiseach Took Will Today Final
Is that it?
Around Leinster House there is a flatness, an ennui, what the Americans would call "senioritis".
As Simon Harris took what will be his final Leaders' Questions as Taoiseach (until/unless he is re-elected), there was a sense of expectation that there may be fireworks.
Journalists bounded onto the Dáil's press gallery in hope.
The result was less a heavyweight title fight and more a light sparring session as Mary Lou McDonald raised the issue of public spending, playing the hits of recent wastefulness: Bike shed, security hut, phone pouches all topped the setlist and the crowd went mild.
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Ms McDonald's contribution did reveal that the pouches will not just be a one-off investment of €9m, but will carry a €2m yearly spend, too.
The Government had rejected three no-cost options, she said, including the very simple idea of students putting their phones in their bags for the day.
"You actually couldn't make this up," the Sinn Féin leader sighed.
Mr Harris, who would later clarify that his red tie was not a signal to Donald Trump, came with a line prepared that will feature in the election, saying that Sinn Féin was not prepared to handle any shocks to the Irish economy that may be caused if the US president-elect upends the Irish foreign investment landscape.
"I look forward to debating this Government's record in terms of managing our economy and managing the public purse versus your policies and your spend it all, leave nothing for the buffer times or leave nothing if there's any transatlantic trade shocks, a policy that, quite frankly, looks surely foolish and ridiculous today."
It didn't exactly have anything to do with the charge being put to him, but it would have been a shame not to reference happenings across the water.
While some on the Government benches would jump in to reject Ms McDonald's premise that nobody in education wants the pouches — Paschal Donohoe told her she hadn't met enough people, the Taoiseach told her to "turn up the radio" — it wasn't the flashpoint we've seen in recent months.
It was what wrestling fans would refer to as a "house show", a bout between two wrestlers which is not televised and only put on for a live audience in a different city each night.
The point of a house show is to entertain, but not over-exert.
You're not pulling out a special move when the cameras aren't on and you're not wasting your best opprobrium on a Taoiseach when there's an election to be fought.
With Mr Harris set to dissolve the Dáil in a number of hours now in the double digits, this was a wind-down of the session and nobody was too upset about it.
The Taoiseach was more animated when Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns attempted to criticise the Government's record on disabilities.
"Time is pretty much up for this Government," she said.
"When Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s alliance started they were the Civil War parties, but now it seems they are more like the phoney war parties.
For weeks there has been sniping in the media. It is not about policy, because it does not seem like there are many policy differences between them, but about personalities."
As the Taoiseach spoke of the work his Government has done, Ms Cairns interjected, saying that one-off payments would "evaporate" and that people were "despondent", causing the Taoiseach to bite back.
"I look forward to having a debate but Deputy Cairns does not need to lecture me. I know my lived experience. I know exactly what it is like to have to fight every single day for a service.
"I know exactly what it is like to watch my mother have to get in a car and drive for two hours to get my brother to school.
"I do not need a lecture from her on what the lived experience is like."
It was the most robust exchange of the day and one which offered a glimpse of a Simon Harris we've not seen much of since his ascendancy to the Taoiseach's office, but who may be needed for Fine Gael in the coming weeks.
Polls suggest that this is unlikely to be Mr Harris's last time taking Leaders' Questions as Taoiseach, but he will face Ms McDonald — and other party leaders — in at least one debate during the election campaign.
Expect those to offer much more spectacle and a few special moves.