Although there was very little surprise at the Parades Commission's ruling on Drumcree yesterday, nevertheless the press conference to announce the decision was a tense affair.
Reporters and camera crews who had barely drawn breath after the agreement, the referendum and the elections were now faced with the less pleasant if more familiar duty of covering civil strife and street confrontation.
The Commission chairman, Mr Alistair Graham, laid particular stress on the role of the media in a lengthy speech, urging them to "weigh your words and advice with care".
He called on journalists to read the Commission's analysis and explanation of the decision it had reached "most carefully" and not to reduce it to "dangerously emotive soundbites".
He is probably right in implying that the media need to exercise greater care about words and their meaning and adopt a more considered approach to the newly-politicised situation that exists here, but it's certain that reporters won't have much time for reflection and self-criticism between now and next Sunday.
The last three years at Drumcree have been disasters of one kind or another. In 1995 nationalists agreed to a compromise but felt it was thrown back in their faces by triumphalist unionist politicians; 1996 saw the worst of all worlds, with unionists close to insurrection, the authorities in a dither and nationalists outraged almost beyond repair; last year's decision went against the nationalists, but the police operation to remove them from the Garvaghy Road was a public relations disaster for the British government.
Given that an agreement has just been concluded which is meant to bring the nationalist community in from the cold, it is hard to envisage another series of television pictures flashing around the world showing nationalists being manhandled by police. But when one side wins, the other loses, or at least that is the perception on the ground. This time it's the unionists and loyalists and members of the Orange Order who are on the back foot, and the rest of the week will see their anger and outrage building to a climax.
The possibility cannot be entirely ruled out that the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, will feel obliged to review the Commission's ruling, if that is the advice from the RUC. Or the RUC might decide on the day that the security situation requires the march to go through. This would mean some loss of face for the Commission, although Mr Graham stressed yesterday that Mr Flanagan had already declared he was "absolutely determined" to implement the Commission's ruling. As Mr Graham also pointed out, Drumcree is about much more than a stretch of road through Portadown. It is the rope in a tug-of-war between the two communities, not just in the town itself but throughout the North.
Having adverted to the hostility his Commission faces on both sides of the divide, he dished out a little punishment of his own. Orangemen, he suggested, were more concerned about their own right of assembly than their responsibility to society as a whole. For their part, nationalist residents had "not been sufficiently creative in encouraging a process of engagement".
Mr Graham understands the views of the Orangemen who see moves to restrict their right to march as part of a strategy for forcing them eventually into a united Ireland. He also appreciates the feelings of the Garvaghy Road nationalists that this march is another way of saying "Croppies lie down".
The Parades Commission rightly states that there is a real and serious threat to public order, whether or not the parade is allowed to return from the church at Drumcree down the Garvaghy Road.
There was some speculation last night that mainstream nationalist politicians, assisted by senior US figures, might now try to bring about a situation where nationalists agreed to the parade taking place along the traditional route as a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation.
Mr David Trimble has also appealed to the residents, in an open letter, to agree to the march going through. The 1995 experience would probably not dispose the nationalists to such a proposition, for all the kudos it would bring their way. At time of writing, the most likely scenario for Sunday is still broken heads.