Tell the truth, shame the Devil
Accepting defeat with good grace is a difficult, if entirely commendable, act of courtesy.
Especially if you happen to be the losing manager on the receiving end of such a disappointment.
Accepting victory with good grace should be an easy, and entirely understandable, act of generosity if you're a winning manager.
And then there are the exceptions to the rule, such as Neil Lennon at Ibrox on Sunday.
The Celtic manager went into the game against Rangers on a day when the majority of those paid to scribble or babble about these matters had decided that Steven Gerrard's side had it within them to win and signal the start of a shift in power within the city of Glasgow and therefore within Scottish football in general.
The scribblers and the babblers, myself included, got it spectacularly wrong on a day when Celtic confounded every pre-match assertion.
If you had walked into a bookmaker's premises on Sunday morning and asked to place a bet on a two goal win for Celtic, Christopher Jullien to be Man of the Match and Johnny Hayes to score the winning goal you would have found a counter assistant eager to rip the stake money out of your hand.
But that is not the point.
Lennon got his team right, his tactics right, his subs right and his post-match protestations right when he picked off those who had underestimated his side and declared then an "afterthought."
And that immediate aftermath indulgence in nailing his detractors included a go at the Celtic supporters who had also fretted over their team in the days leading up to the game against Rangers.
It's Lennon's neck that is on the line. It is Lennon who will get the sack if Celtic don't win the league title at the end of the season.
It is Lennon's prerogative, therefore, to point out the error of his detractors’ ways when he gets it right and they, we, get it horribly wrong.
Fans, on the other hand, don't get the same free hit.
They do get the luxury of being smart after the event with the scribblers and babblers, but that's a form of cheating.
Lennon has been castigated since he was promoted from interim to permanent manager in the wake of Brendan Rodgers' departure for Leicester City
An element within the Celtic support said he was a "downgrade" from the previous incumbent, an inadequate tactical brain and a hand picked glove puppet for the club's Chief Executive, Peter Lawwell.
The guilty will deny that now, of course, but they know who they are.
The very least they could do now is come forward and be honest enough to admit they got it wrong.
One caller to Superscoreboard on Sunday had the decency, the honesty and the humility to say he had doubted the ability of the Celtic defence to withstand what Rangers had to offer at Ibrox on Sunday.
A few more would benefit from admitting the got it wrong as well.
I did, that's for sure.
Confession is good for the soul.
On a more general note, Sunday was supposed to be a sign that the balance of power within the league was about to change.
It didn't happen.
Steven Gerrard got everything wrong. Team selection, tactics, you name it, he blew it.
Rangers were inadequate on the day and their fans took a premature tilt at questioning Celtic's sustainability.
The Rangers fans got it wrong. Some of the Celtic fans got it wrong. The workers at the coalface of truth in the media, myself included, got it wrong.
Welcome to normality.
Take your dumps and move on.
Tell the truth and shame the devil