For the last decade, as Dublin laid perennial waste to what used to be a wonderfully vibrant provincial championship, you would hear the occasional, half-apologetic defence of the Leinster realm.
Sure wouldn’t it be a great competition if the Dubs weren’t in it?” they tried to convince you.
Presumably, now that Dessie Farrell’s one-time trailblazers have gone into reverse, those same soothsayers are predicting the best Leinster championship in aeons.
And perhaps they’ll be proven right: maybe summer 2022 could indeed signal the renaissance of Leinster football as a handful of wannabes spy opportunity in the current travails of Dublin.
But before any rebirth transpires – and we’re not holding our breath – first we must locate a pulse.
Beyond Mickey Harte’s Louth, promoted against the odds to Division 2, where else might you find one? They are the only one out of 11 Leinster counties to finish the Allianz Football League in credit: even Westmeath’s third place in Division 3 left the natives underwhelmed.
Last Sunday’s round seven (anti)-climax has merely confirmed a malaise stretching from the Irish Sea to the Shannon. Five of the six relegation places were filled by Leinster counties: Dublin and Kildare in Division 1, Offaly in Division 2, Laois and Wicklow in Division 3. Even in the basement division, Wexford and Carlow were scrapping at the wrong end, finishing sixth and seventh.
Here’s the real killer to eastern esteem: in all the years where the league was run on a hierarchical basis, Leinster always had at least one team in Division 1. Until now.
The 2023 top-flight will contain four teams from Ulster, three from Connacht and one from Munster. The biggest and most populous province won’t be dining at the top table: if this isn’t a wake-up call, maybe we need to swap the alarm clock for an air raid siren.
The Leinster Council can rightly point towards the East Leinster Project and the latest expansion of its coaching and games programme, announced earlier this month, with the employment of 30 additional full-time coaches.
All very commendable – and vital – but such investments will take years to bear fruit. It also begs another awkward question: if more had been done earlier, beyond the Pale, would the gap between Dublin and their putative chief rivals have grown to such a chasm?
Throughout the last decade, Leinster’s troubles have been partially masked by the individual and collective brilliance of Dublin.
Even if their provincial averages were edging a lot closer to 20-point margins than ten, there was some solace in the failure of anyone else to beat them when it mattered . . . Leinster could then argue that Dublin’s dominance was everyone else’s problem, not just theirs.
Never mind that no other Leinster county had lifted Sam since 1999 (Meath); or reached an All-Ireland final since 2001 (Meath); or qualified for a semi-final since 2010 (Kildare).
Now, even as Dublin’s cloak of invincibility slips, a suspicion remains that the 11-in-a-row kingpins will retain their Delaney Cup vice-grip because no one will be ready to usurp them.
Kildare, to their credit, have already showcased their ambitions by toppling the newly vulnerable Dublin in Newbridge a month ago. It was their first victory over the old enemy since 2000 . . . and yet, for all the signs of spring progress under Glenn Ryan, the Lilies were still relegated.
“Are we any better off or worse off because we’re in Division 1, in preparation for the Leinster championship? I don’t think so. Had we stayed up, we’d still be in the same position,” Ryan argued after their eight-point loss to Mayo.
He has a point, especially as he won’t be facing any other top-flight rival in Leinster. But the gulf in class eventually exposed by Mayo was still a grim reminder that no one from the province bar Dublin – and even that now comes with caveats – can view themselves as genuine All-Ireland contenders.
Pillar Caffrey and Pat Gilroy had already shared seven of the previous eight titles before the Leinster SFC became a dead man walking from 2013, Jim Gavin’s maiden campaign. There were flickering hints of life last July; maybe we will see a true revival this May.
But, for now, if the NFL paints a true picture of your footballing status, then Leinster is in a league of its own, and not in a good way. More non-league than Premier League.