They were against Dublin last year

other teams possess.

While Monaghan didn’t always look fluid in attack yesterday, Beggan’s four points staggered across the afternoon kept the scoreboard ticking over. Points that Tyrone could not counter.

Two years ago, at the end of the 2016 season, I told Vinnie Corey it would be my last. Vinnie assured me he would follow suit. Yesterday he rolled back with years with a commanding performance, in both subduing Tyrone talisman Mattie Donnelly and finding the net a crucial time in the first half.

His empty testament that night in Castleblaney remains one of the greatest lies ever told. When the game was there to be won it was the experience found in the likes of Vinnie, Darren Hughes and McManus that set Monaghan apart in the closing stages.

Buoyed by such a victory, it is time to end the patronising attitude this Monaghan team is subjected to. It doesn’t matter a jot if Monaghan have a population of fifty or five hundred thousand, they need to be taken seriously as a potential All-Ireland contenders.

The condescending pats on the head of the lads from the small county need to the replaced with fair analysis, comparable to what Tyrone, Mayo et al are afforded.

It will also serve Malachy and this team better in the long run. For long parts yesterday they were much too lateral and one dimensional in attack.

Not for the first time, you could count on one hand the number of kicked passes directed into the full forward line. McManus finished the game like the AllStar we know but for the most part yesterday he cut a lonely figure inside.

In McManus, McCarron and Conor McCarthy Monaghan boast three of the best natural scoring forwards in the game. If O’Rourke and Monaghan have genuine All-Ireland ambitions, the manager needs these players to be a regular scoring threat.

The honest endeavour of Fintan Kelly, Karl O’Connell, Ryan McAnespie, among others, cannot be questioned, but when it comes to Croke Park, free scoring forwards win out every time.

Over the past few seasons, Tyrone had been touted as rivals to Dublin’s supremacy.

After yesterday, Monaghan should rightly take their place in that discussion. It’s a long road to the first Sunday of September, but it’s a road this Monaghan team have every right to set out on.