'For us, it's 68 years, so the people were allowed that' - Sam Mulroy loads up again
Declan Bogue
THE TROUBLE WITH Shangri-La, is eventually you have to go home and de-scale the kettle.
While Sam Mulroy and the Louth team and management went bananas after bridging the 68-year gap back to their last Leinster title, it was fun and it was glorious.
And for it to be Meath as the vanquished? Ah, stop! Too much! Too much!
“It was something that none of us, Louth or Meath, probably ever experienced as players. It was unbelievable. I think I was just saying to the few lads here today that like, I think All-Ireland final day has an awful lot of neutral people here,” says Mulroy now.
“Like, I’d be at All-Ireland final day, Louth are not involved, so whereas on Leister final day, it was Louth/Meath, and there were 60,000-plus people here shouting for either side. So yeah, it was noisy, it was electric, it was class.”
But 13 days later, they went out in Newbridge against Monaghan and lost. However, they still had Down to come and felt good enough about themselves, right up to the point when they realised that their diesel was still a little dirty. They left themselves too much to do. Down deservedly won.
Which left a final day out against Clare, who, let’s face it, was their banker. The three point margin and flow of the game however, shows that it was far from comfortable.
Bit of a hangover, then?
“Yeah, I think so,” admits Mulroy at the launch of the All-Ireland football series.
“I suppose winning Leinster has been the main goal over the last number of years for this group, so I suppose 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, and you have to because, as I said, it took a long time to get there and you have to enjoy it and live in the moment for it.
“But yeah, our performances against Monaghan and then Down weren’t up to scratch, and we knew then going into last weekend that, as you said, we have to win to stay in the Championship.
Sam Mulroy scores a penalty for Louth in the nip-and-tuck first half of the Leinster SFC final
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“I don’t know if we played better that way, but we were backs against the wall a little bit sometimes, so maybe it was the best thing for us. So yeah, I thought at times last week we were good, so hopefully coming back to some sort of form.”
They have the unenviable task of an away day in Ballybofey – not quite the fortress now that Tyrone tore up Jim McGuinness’ unbeaten record in Pairc MacCumhaill – but intimidating nonetheless.
Before we get to that yet, let’s stay in the warm bath of the Leinster final before it turns tepid.
“For us, it’s 68 years, so the people were allowed that, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing for a lot of people, and hopefully it comes around, hopefully the gap’s not as big the next time. But I suppose it’s hard to get back on track, maybe, even just for people around the county and talking about it and not getting caught up in that as well.
“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. 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.”
Few deserved the few days quite like Mulroy. He had sent a series of shots wide earlier in the game, but stepped up with 1-7 in total and a critical two-point free towards the end. We’re finding ourselves asking forwards about a lot of critical finishing scores in this brave new world of rules in 2025.
How does Mulroy keep a clear head in those situations?
After all, he is the championship’s leading scorer with 4-34 from six games so far, and the top scorer in the round robin, with 3-20, despite losing two of those three games.
“Moments come and pass and it’s trying to stay on track, not get too caught up in it, and by the time I took the last kick, I’d completely forgotten about the few before, the few I missed at the start of the second half.
“I was actually only watching the clips back with the boys on the Wednesday of training that you’re like, ‘why did I take that shot?’ Or ‘what was I doing there?’”
The next bit is really, really interesting. Read twice if necessary.
“You nearly forget about them, and I think that’s an ability and a skill that you develop over the years of just not getting too high and not getting too low with your shots or your chances or whatever it is, because the game’s so fast and there’s no time.
“I suppose a younger Sam maybe would have dwelled on them and let it get to me and affect me, but I suppose now as I’ve grown as a player, I’ve definitely learned to just move on and forget about it.
“I probably expected myself to score one or two of them, and I snatched that one on the top of the arc. I was probably trying to force it a little bit.
“I know the shots I’ve taken, I think I can definitely score them, and then it’s just a case of probably feeling the moment a little bit more, understanding when you need to take the shot or is there a better opportunity to just keep the ball.”
The partying, the few sherbets, the music and craic and stories and yarns were priceless.
But in time, that stuff fades. What remains is how the children of Louth were inspired by a group of men who have become instant heroes.
Only at the start of this week, the former Louth great JP Rooney forwarded Mulroy a video. It was of Rooney’s soon, previously a football agnostic who wasn’t bothered either way, he would never have been out with a football on his own.
Then his father took him to the Leinster final.
“It was very nice to see that yesterday, that you’re inspiring the next generation of players to be involved in GAA and want to play for their club or their county,” Mulroy says.
“And then I suppose, maybe there was a glass ceiling in Louth that we could never get over the line and win anything, and I suppose getting that job done, and then obviously the 20s and the minors doing really, really well as well, you’re just hoping that people coming through in Louth don’t see that there’s a ceiling on this thing, you can go as far as we like.”
All of this seemed a long way off when Mickey Harte took over in the winter of 2020 and Louth were a division 4 team.
It looked just slightly less unlikely when Harte left after the 2023 season, having left Louth as a division 2 side and having reached a Leinster final. The feeling was of a team that had emptied themselves in a few seasons under an All-Ireland winning coach, and gravity would soon ensue.
“When Mickey Harte left I kind of felt, no matter who comes in there, it’s a case of next man up and we keep going on this journey, and Ger (Brennan) came in with this team, and we’ve done rightly,” deadpans Mulroy.
“Yeah, look, I think the group is an experienced group. We learned a lot under Mickey and Gavin, but I think the group realised that we didn’t want it to stop there, so, yeah, it’s a case of just keeping it going no matter who comes in.
It brings them to Donegal and a man Mulroy knows well.
In 2020 and 2021, Jim McGuinness was in helping out with Mulroy’s club, Naomh Mairtín, when they won their first and second Louth county titles.
They’ve had a few brief meetings since, a few snatched words at Ballyshannon for a league meeting and after last year’s All-Ireland quarter final defeat.
It would be good to catch up, Mulroy says.
But they have miles to go before all that.
“We’re not going up to Ballybofey for the craic or to fulfill a fixture,” he states.
“We’re in a prelim quarterfinal for the All-Ireland series and we played in a quarter-final here last year. so it’s a case of let’s try and go better again this year and try and progress as a team. As I said it won’t be just to fulfill a fixture and just let Donegal go through into a quarter-final.”
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