Leitrim's Emlyn Mulligan fervently calls for tiered championship

Brian Barry

Friday 19 October 2018 12:55, UK

Leitrim footballer Emlyn Mulligan feels the current championship structures are not doing developing counties any favours.

With Dublin's dominance and the introduction of the Super 8s, the gap to the top teams appears to be widening in the Gaelic football landscape. One-sided affairs are becoming an all-too common occurrence in high summer, leaving many calling for a tiered structure to be introduced, as is the case in hurling.

Leitrim's Emlyn Mulligan has been on the receiving end of several significant defeats during his intercounty career, and despite picking up wins over New York and Louth in 2018, he feels it is time for change.

"At the end of the day, there's only three or four counties at the minute with a realistic chance of winning Sam," he lamented. "Dublin, obviously, and a few more with that. The rest of us are all just competing for the sake of competing realistically.

"The incentive isn't there [for Leitrim]. Our commitment is as great as Dublin's. It's five or six nights a week between gym, recovery, training and travel. It's huge commitment and realistic people say, 'What are you doing it for?' I've family members questioning me saying, 'What are you doing it for?'"

Mulligan feels football is only going one direction, and Leitrim will not improve unless they have more games.

He said: "People say: 'Oh in the championship on a given day anything can happen.' It's not like that anymore.

"We're sitting idle a long time now since June. We're not improving. In the last three years we've drawn Roscommon in the draw.

"Them lads were playing in the Super 8s regardless of whether they were getting hammered or not they're still getting games against massive teams. Whereas we can see the progression we got even by beating Louth, we put it up to Monaghan for periods of the game. If you had another two or three games in a different competition it's going to bring you on naturally.

"Games are the only way you're going to improve. The more games the better is the way I look at it."

One counter-argument to a potential B championship is it would get less attention and media coverage. However, the Leitrim star does not feel that would change.

"At the minute we're just completely forgotten about," Mulligan said. "We're sitting here doing nothing. There could be some partial media attention to it or else we're sitting at home and doing nothing. There's two sides to it. I understand where you're coming from but we don't play it for the attention or the media.

"Within our own county in Leitrim, they're not going to worry about what competition it's in. The children still love coming to see us play."

The veteran forward is keen to alter the perception surrounding Leitrim football, and knows the only way of doing that is by delivering results.

"My biggest pet hate is reading articles where they compare Dublin to Leitrim and it's always Leitrim," he said. "That really annoys me. I'm like, why not compare it to Wicklow? Why not compare it to Carlow? We're actually fine in Leitrim. We've money, we're happy out, we're well looked after.

"It's a mentality outside of Leitrim where young lads are going to college up in UCD or DCU and I can guarantee to go to a Sigerson trial and are asked where they're from. They say Leitrim and they won't look at you as eagerly as a lad that's playing with St Vincent's in Dublin.

"But it's up to us to change that. You see the perspective now of Carlow, it's changed completely. That's what we're trying to aim for and strive for."