Ex-Dublin football ace points to why the county has suffered shocks in Leinster

Irish Daily Mirror

08-05-2025

Former Dublin star Alan Brogan has blamed a drop-off in standards in Dublin secondary schools as a reason for the county's alarming Leinster football championship exits at senior and underage levels in recent weeks.Following Louth's comprehensive victory in Wednesday's Leinster minor semi-final, for the first time in 28 years a Dublin side won't contest a provincial decider."It's the hardest type of loss, when you never give it the level of performance that you're capable of," said Dublin's minor manager Damien Fennelly after the 2-17 to 1-8 reversal in Naul.Dessie Farrell's seniors lost to Meath on April 27 - their first time to suffer defeat in the Leinster championship since 2010 - while the under-20s also lost to Meath back in March."Disappointing results for Dublin seniors, 20's and minors in last few weeks," tweeted Brogan, an 11-time Leinster championship winner at senior level with the county and three-time All-Ireland medallist. "Difficult to pinpoint reasons for what seems like a drop off but I believe the drop-off in standard of Gaelic football in Dublin secondary schools in last 10 years is huge issue."In contrast, Louth have progressed to all three Leinster football finals - the Wee County have already won the under-20 final and will face Offaly in the minor decider. But, first up, the seniors will take on Meath in the senior decider on Sunday.
"It has been a fantastic couple of weeks, it really has," said Louth chair Seán McClean, who paid tribute to the under-20s' victory in an interview on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
"They're a great bunch of young lads and work extremely hard, they're coached by some of the finest coaches in the province, never mind in the county, so we're blessed that way. The young lads work extremely hard and got their rewards for it last night."
Asked to put his finger on why Louth football is in such rude health, McClean replied: "There's a lot of very, very good work going on in all the clubs in the county at the minute, we had St Mary's this year going very close to winning a provincial title.
"We had Dundalk Gaels and the Wolfe Tones competing extremely well at their levels as well so there's fantastic work going on and we have some very good management teams with all these teams.
"So we're just in a good place but like everything else, unless you have good footballers on the field you're not going to do anything and the lads that we have are really buying into this.
"They're really working extremely hard and especially during the winter when nobody sees them they're out there working seven days a week."
McClean acknowledged that Drogheda and Dundalk have traditionally been seen as soccer towns "to a degree", but he pointed to the work that has been done to change that.
"We have put a lot of work into the schools in Ardee, Dundalk and Drogheda and have started to improve results," he said. "I notice walking around these towns now you're starting to see a lot more GAA jerseys on kids as opposed to the soccer jerseys, which is always a sign that the tide is rising."
All roads lead to Croker on Sunday for Louth fans and a first Leinster senior final against Meath since that controversial 2010 encounter.
"It's going to be a battle, we've faced them a number of times in the last two years and it's always come down to a kick or two, it's going to be a colossal game," McClean remarked. "I think everyone in Louth is heading down to it and I'm sure everyone in Meath as well, we're really looking forward to it."