After 68 years of playing among the hunters in the Leinster football championship, Louth now find themselves as the team being hunted. Which for Louth captain and chief talisman Sam Mulroy is nothing to fear or hide away from.
There will be plenty of teams out to get them. Meath, for starters, who Louth beat in last year’s Leinster final to claim their first title since 1957. And, of course, Dublin, who had won the last 14 Leinster titles in succession, or 19 of the previous 20.
At the 2026 Leinster football launch event on Tuesday, Louth were also held up as the team that have inspired everyone in this year’s championship to dream big. Bring it on again, says Mulroy, who last year also won Louth’s only third ever All Star.
Despite losing the previous two Leinster finals to Dublin, he hadn’t given up on Louth’s dream. Getting over that line last year, even while putting that target on their back, has reinforced his belief that Louth can do it all over again.
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“After losing two finals in a row, this time last year, I think our expectation within the group was that we needed to at least get back to the final again,” he says, “and see what happens.
“Once we got back there, it was like, ‘We need to get this done now.’ I thought that was super important that we finally got over the line. I know [there was] the element of Dublin weren’t there [Meath beat them in the semi-final], I don’t know if that played into it, but within the group ... it was time we went and won it.
“Maybe it wasn’t talked about outside the group, but if you look at it over the last number of years, we’ve been improving each year. So we had full belief going into last year that we could be there or thereabouts.
“And whether it was us, or anyone else, someone ending that cycle of Dublin winning Leinster was so, so important. I suppose it has given everyone that little bit of a lift, everyone’s eyeing it up now.”
Indeed they are. Louth are straight into the quarter-finals and will play Wexford; Dublin are on the same side of the draw this year, Meath the opposite, which means there’s no hint of any complacency this year either.
“It was never about waiting on Dublin to slip,” says Mulroy. “It was always about, ‘How can we go catch them?’ No doubt they’ll be eyeing it up as well, they’ll want it back and start their cycle again.
“But when we look around our dressingroom, we all have serious belief in each other, know each other inside out. I think that’s been a big asset to us over the last number of years. We know where we’ve come from, what we can do, and where we don’t want it to go.”
By that last bit, Mulroy means back to the lean years. Consistently one of their leading scorers since making his debut in 2017, Mulroy also recalls those tough times, particularly in 2020, when they were relegated to Division 4, winning only one of their seven games.
When Mickey Harte went about turning those fortunes around, taking over as manager in late 2020, one of the first things he did was appoint Mulroy as captain. During Ger Brennan’s subsequent reign, Mulroy remained a critical leader, and this year, with Gavin Devlin in his first season in charge, Mulroy has been playing an ever more influential role.
“Maybe under Ger (Brennan), 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. Whether that be up front or defending or kick-outs or whatever it is, I love being involved,” says Mulroy.
“There’s been lots of running done over the last few years to get to that standard. I suppose trying to add to my game is that element of fitness. Being able to play in the middle eight is quite tough. It takes a certain type of player.”
Fitness is also his business, as the owner of Sam Mulroy Fitness in Drogheda, and at age 28 he’s showing no let up on that front. Still, the recent ACL injury to his Naomh Mairtin clubmate Eoghan Callaghan is a reminder of how quickly these things can change.
After a shaky start to their Division 2 campaign this year, Louth also rebounded with important wins over Tyrone and Derry: “That’s what we struggled with over the last couple of years, the fact we hadn’t really taken out anyone of that stature. It is not an element of us lacking belief, it’s just about putting big performances together.
“That’s what Gavin Devlin is obviously hoping to build on now. It’s going to take a lot of work and money and investment, that’s just the bottom line of it. I suppose that’s always the hope, that it will stay going in that direction.”
