IF YOU ARE looking for the hot, new, indie pick of sporting competitions to be into this summer, you might get away with championing the Leinster football championship.
Or maybe you’re not cool enough.
People have long memories. Influencing the narrative that this championship is one to dive into, feels like fashionistas pushing Birkenstock clogs. I mean it should be cool, but come on!
Because for many, many years, the Leinster football championship was in the running for worst sporting tournament. In the world.
For a solid decade, the final of the Delaney Cup was a travesty. From 2014 to 2023, Dublin won every decider at a canter.
The smallest winning margin was eight points, back when eight points meant eight points. The biggest was 21 points, reached twice; against Louth in 2023, and Meath in 2020.
Seeing as we are pushing the pitchfork into the flank of the corpses, the average margin of victory was over 15 points.
As good as they were going forward methodically and overwhelming opposition defences, they could be mean at the back too.
In 2019, they held Meath to 0-4. The following year they met again in the final. Because of Covid, there was nobody paying through the gates. Maybe there wouldn’t have been anyway.
But now, it’s all different because of two things.
The first is Westmeath. Previously tipped to pop up early in the afternoon in some of the more obscure Festival tents, they are making a big push to play the big stages this summer after beating the critics’ choice of Meath.
Fronted by charismatic manager Mark McHugh, they have some virtuoso performers in Luke Loughlin, Shane Corcoran, Matthew Whittaker and Ray Connellan.
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Fair to say yesterday’s upset of Meath was not widely forecast. And it’s another piece of evidence stacking up in the case against the league as a reliable barometer of potential, separated as they were into the Division 2 champions, and a side that could not extract themselves from Division 3 having lost all but one of their games in the second flight last year.
The Westmeath football team: The summer of 2026 hipsters. Grace Halton / INPHO
Grace Halton / INPHO / INPHO
Reaching a league final raises the profile of a team. Winning a league final leaves people giddy. For a time there, the borrowed talk of punditry was placing Donegal, Kerry and Armagh in one group, with perhaps Galway making up a top tier.
After that, the wisdom goes, Meath were right in the next batch along with the likes of Mayo, Roscommon and Dublin.
But Westmeath made a shrewd appointment when they gave the manager’s job to Mark McHugh, who had previously coached the same players under Dermot McCabe.
Still aged just 35 and a contemporary of Michael Murphy, McHugh has youth, hunger but also adds experience to that blend.
Having played under Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher, it’s clear that he is massive on clarity of purpose as he said in the post-match interviews that they didn’t have a huge amount of time to analyse Meath, but then mentioned: “We stayed in Cusack Park on Thursday night until 12 o’clock to make sure everybody was clear…and they, to a man, to the letter of the law, carried out that game plan today.”
By 2019, McHugh pulled out of the Donegal squad, but a lot of what he does as a coach was framed by the managers he played under, throughout his journey which began with Fermanagh minors, through to coaching Roscommon under Davy Burke and Moycullen in Galway.
You’ll notice from this picture here that he has a wristband with a Westmeath county crest on it. Which is something a few counties like to have, but Donegal have done it more than most.
Elsewhere, Louth and Kildare did the business yesterday and what was expected of them. But down in Aughrim, it was a different story.
Dublin, well, they are very much in the shit right now.
The rule governing Ger Brennan’s 12-week suspension for getting in a spat with Galway’s strength and conditioning coach Cian Breathnach-McGinn is that he cannot have any involvement with the Dublin senior football team.
That includes training the team. And that to many people would seem incredible in its truest sense. However, it would appear from the whispers around the place that Brennan has respected this part of the ruling.
The thing is, the timing of the suspension makes it – in real terms – one of the harshest punishments ever handed down in the GAA and one that is entirely understandable that Dublin pursued to the ultimate authority of the DRA.
With the suspension kicking in after the Galway game, it is due to be up on 14 June. It leaves him off the reservation for a Leinster opener, a semi-final and, potentially, the final on 17 May.
After that, the first round of qualifiers on 30-31 May, and if their Round 2 qualifier is fixed for 13 June, that’s five games.
Add in the two league games that will carry over in 2027, then this looks severe.
The situation leaves Dublin with a management team of Dean Rock, Stephen Cluxton and Denis Bastick.
Wicklow and Dublin get hot and heavy. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
All three have legitimate claims to have been some of the greatest servants of Dublin football. But in terms of managerial experience, they are novices.
It would seem a prudent move to lean on Dr Niall Moyna as the experienced head in the set-up. Perhaps there will be more of that as the weeks go on, but it would seem the defeat at the DRA threw them.
Because Dublin didn’t beat Wicklow as much as Wicklow threw the game away.
Up until Sunday, Mark Jackson had converted 16 two-point chances from the dead ball in the league. Against Carlow the previous week, he nailed three, and a penalty.
A picture of him looking distraught at the end of Sunday’s defeat showed the tell-tale sign of a thigh strapped up. Either way, he had seven chances here. He booted six wides and dropped one short, finishing scoreless.
After the game, Dean Rock assumed the media duties in the absence of Brennan. If the press corps were relieved to be spared the pain of ‘talking’ to Stephen Cluxton given how he treated such affairs in the past, then they found Rock in uncompromising form.
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In the new season of the extrovert managers dealing out quips aplenty and wry smiles, Rock leaned back in time to his old manager and mentor, Jim Gavin.
He stated that Brennan wanted to put on record, the gratitude towards Dublin volunteers and the DRA for his hearing and how they respect the decision. He dodged and shimmied beyond the challenges of questions about the (likely hamstring) injury that brought Con O’Callaghan off at half-time, as well as Colm Basquel and Eoin Murchan.
Paddy Small is upended. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
Rock was determined to give future opponents nothing to get worked up about.
As if Louth will need anything like that. Right now, it’s Dublin that are left trying to get their dander up to face reigning Leinster champions, Louth.
It’s the Leinster championship and you can’t bear to take your eyes off it!
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All hail the bright new Leinster rollercoaster as Dublin scrape through and Meath crash out
IF YOU ARE looking for the hot, new, indie pick of sporting competitions to be into this summer, you might get away with championing the Leinster football championship.
Or maybe you’re not cool enough.
People have long memories. Influencing the narrative that this championship is one to dive into, feels like fashionistas pushing Birkenstock clogs. I mean it should be cool, but come on!
Because for many, many years, the Leinster football championship was in the running for worst sporting tournament. In the world.
For a solid decade, the final of the Delaney Cup was a travesty. From 2014 to 2023, Dublin won every decider at a canter.
The smallest winning margin was eight points, back when eight points meant eight points. The biggest was 21 points, reached twice; against Louth in 2023, and Meath in 2020.
Seeing as we are pushing the pitchfork into the flank of the corpses, the average margin of victory was over 15 points.
As good as they were going forward methodically and overwhelming opposition defences, they could be mean at the back too.
In 2019, they held Meath to 0-4. The following year they met again in the final. Because of Covid, there was nobody paying through the gates. Maybe there wouldn’t have been anyway.
But now, it’s all different because of two things.
Fronted by charismatic manager Mark McHugh, they have some virtuoso performers in Luke Loughlin, Shane Corcoran, Matthew Whittaker and Ray Connellan.
Fair to say yesterday’s upset of Meath was not widely forecast. And it’s another piece of evidence stacking up in the case against the league as a reliable barometer of potential, separated as they were into the Division 2 champions, and a side that could not extract themselves from Division 3 having lost all but one of their games in the second flight last year.
Reaching a league final raises the profile of a team. Winning a league final leaves people giddy. For a time there, the borrowed talk of punditry was placing Donegal, Kerry and Armagh in one group, with perhaps Galway making up a top tier.
After that, the wisdom goes, Meath were right in the next batch along with the likes of Mayo, Roscommon and Dublin.
But Westmeath made a shrewd appointment when they gave the manager’s job to Mark McHugh, who had previously coached the same players under Dermot McCabe.
Still aged just 35 and a contemporary of Michael Murphy, McHugh has youth, hunger but also adds experience to that blend.
Having played under Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher, it’s clear that he is massive on clarity of purpose as he said in the post-match interviews that they didn’t have a huge amount of time to analyse Meath, but then mentioned: “We stayed in Cusack Park on Thursday night until 12 o’clock to make sure everybody was clear…and they, to a man, to the letter of the law, carried out that game plan today.”
By 2019, McHugh pulled out of the Donegal squad, but a lot of what he does as a coach was framed by the managers he played under, throughout his journey which began with Fermanagh minors, through to coaching Roscommon under Davy Burke and Moycullen in Galway.
You’ll notice from this picture here that he has a wristband with a Westmeath county crest on it. Which is something a few counties like to have, but Donegal have done it more than most.
Elsewhere, Louth and Kildare did the business yesterday and what was expected of them. But down in Aughrim, it was a different story.
Dublin, well, they are very much in the shit right now.
The rule governing Ger Brennan’s 12-week suspension for getting in a spat with Galway’s strength and conditioning coach Cian Breathnach-McGinn is that he cannot have any involvement with the Dublin senior football team.
That includes training the team. And that to many people would seem incredible in its truest sense. However, it would appear from the whispers around the place that Brennan has respected this part of the ruling.
The thing is, the timing of the suspension makes it – in real terms – one of the harshest punishments ever handed down in the GAA and one that is entirely understandable that Dublin pursued to the ultimate authority of the DRA.
With the suspension kicking in after the Galway game, it is due to be up on 14 June. It leaves him off the reservation for a Leinster opener, a semi-final and, potentially, the final on 17 May.
After that, the first round of qualifiers on 30-31 May, and if their Round 2 qualifier is fixed for 13 June, that’s five games.
Add in the two league games that will carry over in 2027, then this looks severe.
The situation leaves Dublin with a management team of Dean Rock, Stephen Cluxton and Denis Bastick.
All three have legitimate claims to have been some of the greatest servants of Dublin football. But in terms of managerial experience, they are novices.
It would seem a prudent move to lean on Dr Niall Moyna as the experienced head in the set-up. Perhaps there will be more of that as the weeks go on, but it would seem the defeat at the DRA threw them.
Because Dublin didn’t beat Wicklow as much as Wicklow threw the game away.
Up until Sunday, Mark Jackson had converted 16 two-point chances from the dead ball in the league. Against Carlow the previous week, he nailed three, and a penalty.
A picture of him looking distraught at the end of Sunday’s defeat showed the tell-tale sign of a thigh strapped up. Either way, he had seven chances here. He booted six wides and dropped one short, finishing scoreless.
After the game, Dean Rock assumed the media duties in the absence of Brennan. If the press corps were relieved to be spared the pain of ‘talking’ to Stephen Cluxton given how he treated such affairs in the past, then they found Rock in uncompromising form.
In the new season of the extrovert managers dealing out quips aplenty and wry smiles, Rock leaned back in time to his old manager and mentor, Jim Gavin.
He stated that Brennan wanted to put on record, the gratitude towards Dublin volunteers and the DRA for his hearing and how they respect the decision. He dodged and shimmied beyond the challenges of questions about the (likely hamstring) injury that brought Con O’Callaghan off at half-time, as well as Colm Basquel and Eoin Murchan.
Rock was determined to give future opponents nothing to get worked up about.
As if Louth will need anything like that. Right now, it’s Dublin that are left trying to get their dander up to face reigning Leinster champions, Louth.
It’s the Leinster championship and you can’t bear to take your eyes off it!
*****
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