Louth footballer, Sam Mulroy, pictured as AIB announces a five-year extension to its sponsorships of the GAA All-Ireland Football Championship and the AIB Camogie and GAA All-Ireland Club Championships. AIB is extremely proud to be extending their support of #TheToughest championships, as well as the players and communities involved in Gaelic Games nationwide.
By John Harrington
Dublin’s dominance of Leinster has long been the biggest stick to beat the provincial championships with, but Sam Mulroy isn’t inclined to go down that road.
The Louth captain believes people are looking in the wrong place when they focus on Dublin’s 12 Leinster titles in a row as a negative.
The Wee County will bid to stop the Dubs making it 13 on the trot in this year’s Leinster Football Final, and Mulroy is adamant it’s the responsibility of his county and ever other in the province trying to knock Dublin from their perch to breathe new life into their provincial championship.
“I suppose you have the giants of Kerry and Dublin in Munster and Leinster,” he says. “You can’t take them out of it and you can’t do anything about that.
“But I have spoken about this before and it is up to everyone else to stop giving out about it and try to do something about it more so than shy away.
“In relation to the provincials, when you see how exciting they are in Ulster and Connacht, why would you change them?
“Look, they are a platform for teams like ourselves to build on and rate our progress on.
“The league is a credible competition and teams are playing at their own level and you can really see progress in teams who are moving up through the levels in their province.
“From my point of view, I love the way there is a group of 16 coming up and I suppose to play so many championship matches, everybody has to be happy.
“I think the key to the whole thing is playing championship matches to justify the amount of training you are doing.”
Sam Mulroy of Louth during the Leinster GAA Football Senior Championship Semi Final match between Louth and Offaly at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
The Leinster Final on May 14 is the first that Louth will have contested since the infamous 2010 decider against Meath.
Back then Mulroy was a 12-year-old enthusiastically embracing the excitement of the build-up to the game, this time around he’s doing his best to ignore it.
“Back then I was living on the hype,” he says. “You are reading everything, you are trying to get some insight and you have a different perspective. You want to talk to everyone or anyone about it.
“And now, it’s the opposite. You want to think the least as possible and you don’t want to talk about it.
"So I am in a completely different scenario than I was in 2010 obviously. But you do pick up on stuff.
“You live off it, like. It’s so exciting for people and in any sport. It’s been 13 years, but only two finals in 68 years.
“For that, it is just incredible and exciting times for Louth fans and I am really, really happy that we can bring that joy to them and there is more to come than the last time. But it is exciting.”
Louth will go into that match as massive underdogs, but you can be sure that Mickey Harte will have convinced his players they can win it.
He’s changed the mindset of the whole county to the point that Mulroy believes there’s no alternative other than to keep improving, with the ultimate goal being silverware.
“I suppose I spoke about the changes made and the standards brought now that when Mickey will go, that Louth people will have to maintain those standards and that has to be the bare minimum.
“In terms of that side of things, there’s definitely been improvements. And I think we have matched that on the pitch too – two promotions and we are going in the right trajectory.
“But I think the group of players that are there at the minute want to get success and believe they can do that. It’s been an incredible journey but it would be nice to get some medals.”
