The euphoria surrounding Louth’s Leinster title victory following a 68-year wait may have presented some problems in terms of readjusting for the perils of the group phase.
Louth’s 2025 season will go down as unqualified success regardless of what transpires from now on.
A surprise defeat to Clare last Sunday would have seen the season finish on a bum note and perhaps added an unwelcome post-script to future accounts of their Leinster triumph.
However, Ger Brennan’s side withstood a late rally in Portlaoise to survive by a three-point margin and avoid becoming the first provincial winners to exit at the group phase.
“I suppose winning Leinster has been the main goal over the last number of years for this group,” says captain Sam Mulroy.
“So when you get there and you do it, maybe there is a case of coming down a little bit. There was obviously a lot of celebrating for a few days after.
“It took a long time to get there and you have to enjoy it and live in the moment. But yeah, our performances against Monaghan and then Down weren’t up to scratch.”
Did the fortnight to the Monaghan game offer enough time to stand back and savour a rare provincial triumph?
“Maybe it did for counties that are winning them year on year, where there’s not a big gap between provincial titles.
“For us, as I said, it’s 68 years, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing for a lot of people. Hopefully the gap’s not as big the next time.
“But I suppose it was hard to get back on track. I think it was a short turnaround of our training on the Wednesday, obviously with a job to do and we knew we were going into a tough group.
“So yeah, it was a case of maybe you didn’t get to bask in it as much as you’d like, but we enjoyed the few days we did get.”
After nailing down third place in the group, the draw didn’t hold out the prospect of any soft options, with away games against Dublin, Kerry or Donegal all that was on offer.
And so they’re set for Ballybofey, to take on a Donegal side who ended their run at the quarter-final stage last summer. And another encounter against their famous manager, with whom Mulroy is well acquainted.
It was back in the difficult year of 2020, when Jim McGuinness was captured on camera taking a training session with the Galway footballers in Tuam – an incident which may have inspired his recent preference for high walls.
While that was a relatively isolated session, far more extensive was his involvement with Mulroy’s Naoimh Martin club in Louth that same year.
A former Donegal physio had alerted McGuinness to the club’s potential and he worked with the club for six weeks. Naomh Martin subsequently won their first ever Louth SFC title that summer, making it back-to-back in 2021.
“Jim was in with us for one of the two championship periods, 2020 and 2021. His physio, JD McGrenra has a house in Monasterboice, and that was the connection there,” recalls Mulroy.
“He was immense when he was with us, and a gentleman, and always very good with his time. Like, that was our first ever senior title in their club, so it was very special. So yeah, look, I’ll never forget that and the help he gave us.
“I was captain in 2021, and yeah, he was very big on leadership and driving the group on. I learned an awful lot, just on the training pitch, how he spoke to players and got us to bring up our levels, and yeah, you can see why he’s been so successful.”
While the Leinster title was received as a landmark victory, Mulroy has in the past spoken about Louth going further and potentially even getting to the stage of competing for All-Irelands, notably on the BBC Social podcast a few years ago.
“I guess it might seem outlandish to some people at the time, but it’s become less so,” says Mulroy.
“I took a little bit of slack for it at the time, which was fine, but I suppose it was a case of putting it out there into the world, and saying why not, why could we not be in contention?
“And the group’s gone about doing the work to put us in contention, and to play in these games.
“Obviously, last week Meath beat Kerry, and they’ve beaten Dublin, and there’s results that you wouldn’t have been calling, maybe last year, that are happening there this year.
“I don’t think we can rule anything out going into the next few weeks.”
The new rules may well have injected a random element to the championship, with upsets notably more prevalent than in the past decade and a half.
Mulroy is broadly enthusiastic about the new rules, with the 11v11 allowing more space for forwards to thrive. However, he has a couple of reservations.
“I don’t like the kick-out, the fact it has to go past the 40-metre arc. The fact the ball can’t go back to the keeper, I think if you kick the ball short, teams are going to stay in press anyway, because the risk of giving the ball away is a lot higher.
“We would have worked massively on our kick-out over the last number of years, and now it just seems to be, ‘oh, you have to kick it long’
“And I know people will say, ‘oh, well, there’s contests around the middle, and there’s breaking the ball’ but the skill of the keeper putting the ball on the cone and pinging it 30 yards on the move, I think that’s exciting, and I think that’s a skill that’s maybe been taken away a little bit.
“But I suppose my one fear is that they keep changing stuff in season now.
“I think they changed the keeper rule (12 v 11), after Monaghan beat us in the league. I was like, how does that result still stand when Rory Beggan came up and played it against us?
“I know we’re saying it’s a transition year, but I think just being careful that they don’t keep changing stuff at mid-season, or they’ll start annoying coaches and players.”
