He was on his way home from Dublin to training, sitting in traffic with his headphones in, when the call came.

After Donegal beat Cork in Ballyshannon in February, Neil McGee walked up the steps of the Aodh Ruadh clubhouse to speak to journalists. Concluding his duties, he wanted to know one result – how did Tyrone, a league lower, fare against Galway. “Good to know how the neighbours are getting on,” he smiled.

When Richard Carey climbed the steps in Celtic Park five years ago, it was the culmination of an incredible rise. From a junior final in 2000, via an All-Ireland intermediate final in 2007, an unfashionable group of players wrote one of the great pieces of history in Derry’s annals.

At first, their hearts will have skipped a beat or two. But not long after last night’s draw for the 2013 Ulster championship pitted powerhouses Donegal and Tyrone against each other, Jim McGuinness and Mickey Harte will have felt adrenaline course through their veins.