As two of the three Ulster counties that will remain in the EU following today's earlier Brexit results, Monaghan and Donegal line up in the Ulster championship for the fourth year in a row.
Tomorrow evening's clash at Kingspan Breffni Park will be the first to take place outside of Clones in that time and there is little between the two sides at the bookies. (Ladbrokes have Monaghan at evens, Donegal at 11/10 and the draw at 15/2).
Following shock defeats to Mayo and Cork in the last two weekends though, there is an argument that Monaghan and Donegal are fighting it out to become the third-best team in the country behind Dublin and Kerry. Donegal have reached the All-Ireland final in 2012 and 2014 so are looking for the pattern to continue in 2016.
But Monaghan have definitely had the upper hand over the last three years and might just be the most under-rated team in the country at this stage. They definitely should be favourites for tomorrow's game and here's why.
1 - The recent results speak for themselves
Monaghan and Donegal have faced off five times in the league and championship over the last three years. Monaghan have won four of them. Granted, the games have been close - the last two games (in the league this year and the Ulster Final last year) have gone to Monaghan by a point each time - but the Farney County still have the knack of coming out on top.
2 - Monaghan's kickout strategy has ramped up a level
Rob Carroll over at the always excellent GaelicStats has detailed this in great style. Looking at the way Monaghan played against Dublin in the league in February (Monaghan lost the game by a point, 1-14 to 0-16 despite being one point up with 68 minutes gone). Monaghan went man-to-man against the Dublin kickout and won a third of Stephen Cluxton's kickouts - a more than decent return against the metronomic Parnells man.
From the seven kickouts Monagahan overturned, they scored five points and had two goal chances. There were no signs of this pattern slowing down in Monaghan's championship opener against Down - where they stole a massive 44 percent of the opposition kickouts. A similar outcome today against the relatively inexperienced Mark Anthony McGinley would definitely tilt the balance in Monaghan's favour.
3 - Neil McGee missing for Donegal is a huge loss
Neil McGee misses out following his red card in Donegal's facile opening win over Fermanagh for which he was hit with a two-match ban.
The fact that Monaghan now have two serious danger men in Conor McManus and Kieran Hughes means that Eamon McGee (who will be making his 150th appearance in Donegal colours according to the Donegal Democrat) will have to choose one or the other of them. While Donegal have many other fine defenders - Neil McGee would be a loss for any side.
4 - We might be underestimating Monaghan's performance against Down
Donegal's seven-point margin against Fermanagh was impressive enough. But Monaghan's dismantling of Down was awesome really. Monaghan converted 65 percent of their shots in recording a scoreline of 2-22. But in limiting Down to 0-9, Monaghan also limited Down to scoring from one out of every four possessions they had. The statisticians were even more impressed.
There is a metric known as "productivity" which calculates how likely a team is to score from every ten possessions.
Usually, a productivity rating of three (ie, the team scores from three out of every ten possessions) is good enough for a side to win. Monaghan racked up a 5.5 productivity rating. That's the highest rate recorded in the Ulster championship in the past three years.
5 - Donegal's 'gamesmanship' might be under greater scrutiny
Following Donegal's win over Fermanagh, Pete McGrath really let rip at Donegal's approach to the game.
"A number of Donegal players went down feigning injury just to stop the clock and the referee fell for it. Let's see what the authorities will do about it but we know they will do nothing. But this is Fermanagh - if it was Dublin who were on the receiving end of some of these things then they might do something about it. And when you think that it took three minutes from a penalty being awarded until the kick was taken, that was totally unacceptable," said McGrath.
From one of the grandees of the game - those were pretty harsh words. They follow some pretty unsavoury incidents during Donegal's league clash with Kerry earlier this year. Ciaran Branagan from Down is the referee for tomorrow night's clash and sub-consciously or not, he's likely to have heard McGrath's words.
It's just another wrinkle in what will be a fascinating, if not free-flowing encounter.
