Everyone now eyeing up Leinster crown, insists Louth maestro Mulroy 

Louth footballer Sam Mulroy during the launch of the 2026 Leinster GAA Senior Football Championships at Killashee Hotel in Naas. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

The end of Dublin’s 14-year reign in Leinster has transformed the Leinster senior football championship, according to Louth’s winning captain last year Sam Mulroy.

On that count, it may have been Meath who did the heavy lifting in beating Dublin at the semi-final stage, but Louth were full value for their success in what was their third consecutive final.

Dublin remain favourites to regain the Delaney Cup but not as convincing after Meath replaced them in Division 1 and Louth also came close to going up.

“Whether it be us or had it been anyone else, I think someone just ending that cycle of Dublin winning Leinster was just so, so important,” remarked Mulroy at the launch of this year’s competition.

“I suppose it has given everyone that little bit of a lift and everyone’s eyeing it up now. I think it will be a super competitive championship and exciting.” 

Having been on a Louth side that went from losing by 21 points to Dublin in the 2022 final to four the following year, Mulroy felt the gap was closing before they went all the way. Now their triumph is inspiring others.

“It was never about waiting on Dublin to slip, it was always about how can we go catch them? I think when you look at what Meath have done last year, and this year, the amount of teams that are progressing in Leinster, Carlow and Wexford, I think everyone is eyeing it up now and can see that if we put a block of work in here, there’s no reason why we can’t do it.” 

Mulroy won’t say if Louth have been given enough credit or not for last year’s triumph, but feels the journey of the senior players in the group from Division 4 to Leinster champions is worthy of praise.

“That spine of the team last year, and certainly 10 or 11 of them have been playing with Louth the last number of years together, I think they deserve an awful lot of credit for what they’ve done and the effort they’ve put in.

“I suppose we can’t control what’s talked about or what’s not talked about. But I think within our group we have great belief in each other. We know where we’ve come from and what we can do, and where we don’t want it to go. I think that’s important in a group. When we look around the dressing room we all have serious belief in each other and know each other inside out and are in it together.” 

Louth finished third in Division 2 behind Cork and Meath having won their last four matches including defeats of Tyrone and Derry in Ardee. It’s a tidy springboard ahead of their defence of the Delaney Cup.

“Last year was massive for us to get across the line in such a big game as the Leinster final,” says Mulroy. “This year it is important to build on those performances and beat Tyrone and Derry, the so-called bigger teams. That was what we struggled with over the last couple of years, the fact we had not really taken out anyone of that stature.” 

After Saturday’s extra-time Division 4 final win over Longford, Carlow’s Joe Murphy underlined the importance of a native management team.

Gavin Devlin is the third outside manager that Mulroy has played under and he doesn’t see an issue. “If there are enough strong players within group, I don't think it matters where the manager is from.

“I know Gavin takes great pride in leading us and Mickey (Harte) did the same and Ger (Brennan) did the same so maybe it's hard to answer that question but I always come back to the players – if it's going wrong, it's the players and if it's going right, it's usually the players as well.” 

Mulroy is dropping deeper this season, which he mightn’t have been doing had there not been a change in management. “I thought I'd maybe always had that in my game as well. I've not been afraid.

“Maybe under Ger, I'd probably try to stay up in the top three a lot more, whereas this year I'll probably have a little bit more freedom to go wherever.

“I love being involved in the game. Whether that be up front or defending or kick-outs or whatever it is, I love being involved. It's been exciting.”