Louth captain Sam Mulroy at Oldbridge House, Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre in Drogheda, Meath during a media event for the 2025 Leinster GAA Senior Football Championship Final between Louth and Meath which will take place on Sunday 11th of May in Croke Park, Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
It's a leap admittedly but within 10 days Louth could have possession of all three of Leinster's flagship football titles; minor, U-20 and senior.
Their U-20s have already taken care of business, collecting a first win at that grade since 1981 while Johnny Clerkin's brilliant minor team will shoot for a first Leinster title since 1953 when they face Offaly in the final on Monday week.
Louth's seniors, of course, will return to Croke Park tomorrow for a third final in a row and their sixth in total since last climbing to the summit of the province in 1957.
Never has the county won all three in the same season but it is a realistic ambition now and, for many, a likely possibility. By any estimation this is a golden period for Louth football but is it sustainable? Louth senior captain Sam Mulroy is optimistic on that score.
"I'd really like to think so," said Mulroy. "I think what you're seeing now is years of work and a change in mentality with those younger lads. You'd like to think that the guys who are in the academy squads at 14, 15, 16 are looking up and going, 'Jeez, maybe this is where I want to be, this is what I want to do'. And I'd like to hope that it keeps on this trajectory.
"I always say it stems from the top down. The senior team improving has left the younger lads looking up and saying, 'I want to be involved in that, I want to do that. I want to be Tommy Durnin or Craig Lennon or Conor Grimes'. I think that has a massive impact on the younger lads.
"Then obviously the work that's going on with Shane Lennon and the lads working at underage over the last number of years, Ciaran Sloan, Gavin Devlin is there now as well, developing those lads. I know I'm leaving out hundreds of other people there that are working hard at underage level. It's credit to all of them, it's credit to the players for buying in and pushing hard and wanting to be there."
Sam Mulroy of Louth with supporters after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Round 1 match between Louth and Meath at Grattan Park in Inniskeen, Monaghan. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile.
The really exciting thing for Louth supporters is that their flagship minor, U-20 and senior teams may just be getting going in 2025.
"It goes back to the old cliche that it's a process, day by day, it's going to training, doing your bits outside of that and, as I always say to everyone, the sun will still come up in the morning," said attacker Mulroy.
"I'll still have to go work! And that's just how you have to get on with your life. You just have to try as much as possible to park that stuff and those thoughts and the fantasy that comes along with the celebrations, or the commiserations, whatever way your mind works, and just let it play out."
Mulroy has been a slave to those processes over the last couple of months. And if he does make history as the first Louth player in 68 years to get his hands on the Leinster trophy tomorrow, it will amount to a rich dividend for a giant personal investment.
The thing is, it's only eight weeks since he suffered a significant hamstring injury that, at the time, he was told was a 'nine-week job'. And yet, in typical fashion, he shaved a few weeks off his recovery and already has a game under his belt, top-scoring for Louth in the semi-final win over Kildare.
The 27-year-old Naomh Mairtin man has form for these types of super recoveries.
In 2023, he was told that he was facing 12 weeks out with a similar injury only to somehow cut the recovery period in half.
"Even a few years back, I dislocated the ankle, I came back and played inside four months after that as well, which was pretty good after surgery and stuff," he smiled. "I just seem to try to do the right things well."
Sam Mulroy of Louth in action against Seán Coffey, left, and Adam O'Neill of Meath during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Round 1 match between Louth and Meath at Grattan Park in Inniskeen, Monaghan. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile.
Doing the right things well is one way of putting it. It turns out that Mulroy explored every possible avenue and called in all sorts of favours to make this latest comeback a success.
"I knew I was under time pressure so it was a case of ringing every S&C and physio from Ireland and the UK nearly to see who we could talk to," he explained. "We spoke to numerous people from Man City and Chelsea and whoever else to try to see what they were doing with similar injuries. I pushed it as hard as I could and thankfully it felt good."
The line of contact that Mulroy, a gym owner himself, established with Manchester City's medical experts turned out to be particularly fruitful.
"One of the City guys is doing his PhD on this certain part of the hamstring that I had hurt," he revealed. "Little nuggets like that help. You're trying to find the one percenters, whether it's anything big or small you'll take it. When the season is so tight, you'll try anything."
Louth will owe Mulroy a debt of gratitude if he can help end their long wait for provincial silverware.
"I think you'd be lying if you said you don't think about it, that it doesn't come into your head," said Mulroy of the celebrations that would follow.
"And sure you're talking to lots of people as well that are only mad to talk about it! I'd be lying if I said it doesn't come into your head but then it's about having the power to come back to the here and now and the realisation that you can waste an awful lot of energy worrying and thinking about stuff that you've no control over."
