Having just suffered the heart break of losing his WBO middleweight title to Billy Joe Saunders on Saturday night Andy Lee is most likely in reflective mood and hasn’t thought too much about what step he will take next.

However, Matthew Macklin has suggested he is open to an Irish derby with the former titlist in 2016, indeed the former European champion says a Limerick Tipperary clash of the boxing kind is a possibility.

A Lee v Macklin clash has been high on the wish list of Irish boxing fans for a number of years and has been and much talked about possibility since as far back as 2007.

When John Duddy was taking New York by storm there was talks about a Duddy, Lee, Macklin trio of fights and every road either middleweight has taken since has had a Lee or Macklin sign post.

However, when Macklin lost to Jorge Sebastain Hieland in November of 2014 and Lee won the WoBO strap last year a 160lbs domestic derby looked dead in the water, especially as most believed ‘Mack The Knife’ would retire.

The ‘Tipp Tornado’ did returned, but seemed intent on competing at light middleweight putting further distance between Limerick’s Lee and himself.

Not to mention before Lee lost his strap in Manchester on Saturday he had discussed names like Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs and seemed keen on big fights Stateside.

However, Lee’s reverse could put paid to those plans for now and if he doesn’t get a Saunders rematch he will survey his options. One of those options could be Macklin, the Matchroom fighter is certainly optimistic it could happen.

When asked on Twitter about the clash Macklin said ‘It’s definitley possible sometime in 2016.”