Monaghan defender Karl O'Connell says his side will have 'a lot to say' about the rest of the All-Ireland championship if they can get another win in the Super 8s competition.
Malachy O'Rourke's charges produced a strong finish in Croke Park to defeat Kildare and record their first ever win at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage.
More importantly, it gave them a winning start to their Super 8s campaign as they gear up for a stiff challenge against Kerry next weekend.
O'Connell, who helped himself to three points from half-back on Sunday, says that welcoming the Munster champions to Cones will be a 'dream' tie to prepare for despite the short turnaround.
"We're well used to it now over the last few weeks, that's what you want it's just competitive games," he told RTÉ
"From a fan's point of view, we can't stress Kerry coming to Clones for a championship game - it's going to be a dream. From a player's point of view, we've got to knuckle down.
"It's going to be a great occasion, it's a big game. If we get another win, we'll have a lot to say. If we lose we still have another game to go. We've got a big week to look at the mistakes and make sure we work on them."
Kildare and Monaghan played out a tight contest from the outset and just two points separated them at the break. They were level inside the last five minutes of normal time before points from Vinny Corey, Conor McManus and Rory Beggan secured the result for Monaghan.
The Ulster side were certainly made to work for the victory after conceding an early goal to a side who O'Connell remarks were 'wrongfully written off' ahead of the clash.
"It's very important to win the first game and you need to get off to a good start," he said.
"It just gives us a good template. We certainly know we're not even near the next stage yet but it's nice to get the first win,we've Kerry next week. It's going to be another big game, [we've] got to work on the mistakes there, [we'll] definitely be punished if we don't work on them.
"But overall we're happy with the win and it's just a key start. The mentality of winning is so important, it doesn't matter how it is. The draw was kind to us in the qualifiers and that's no disrespect to any of the teams that we played but we probably didn't waste too much work in other games that we got through in previous years.
"At the end of the day you've got to be winning and winning is very important."
He added:
"Kildare are a great team, they've a lot of very good players all over the place. We just managed to finish it out. Kildare are still going to have a lot to say come the last two games, particularly the home game and it's going to be a great format, everybody's looking forward to it.
"Kildare are no easy shake, they're a very good team and were wrongfully written off."
