Leinster's Three

Quarter finals of the football championship, and the most represented province is Leinster. The province which hasn't had an All-Ireland finalist since 2001, and hasn't had a winner since the Royal County took ultimate honours in the last year of the last century, must take encouragement from their three counties fighting for places in the semi-finals. True, none but the Leinster Champions will enter their tie as favourites, and both Wexford and Kildare played this weekend in atrocious football matches, but teams have won medals in the past playing less than perfect football.

Traditionally Ulster counties support each other against a perceived common enemy when counties emerge from the northern province. Local rivalries are one thing, but this morphs to local affinity when supporters travel to Croke Park. This has never been the case for Leinster, but perhaps now is the time. Critics are speaking of the Leinster Championship in football in the same terms used for the hurling version. Dublin are seen as the hegemons that Kilkenny have long been in hurling. Such a dominance does nothing for the respect for the competition, even more so when it is considered that thirteen years have passed since Dublin supporters have sought tickets in late September.

Leinster needs to occupy a place at the top table of football. More teams from Leinster compete in the football championship than any of the other provinces, yet most of these are classed as weak counties and in turn the chamionship is a weak cometition. This year's qualifiers has already witnessed the gutting of Meath in the most savage way imaginable on a trip to one of Munster's second class citizens. Laois and Offaly now share both a Dáil constituency and a bad memory of a summer meeting with Mourne men. Of the other counties Westmeath represented creditable but ill disciplined opposition for Louth's conquerers in Omagh; Longford didn't play any teams from outside their province; Carlow and Wicklow weren't even eligible for qualification to the, eh, qualifiers. All this and the final of the Leinster Championship saw the biggest margin of victory in any football match this summer, missing out only to Galway's defeat of Antrim in hurling for the title of worst mauling of the Gaelic summer.

The best answer for the criticism this inevitably leads to, as it was when Ulster's nine way battle was considered a second tier championship, is for success to come outside the province. Thus supporters of all Leinster counties should welcome the current quarter-final representation, and all should hope for Leinster progression against Cork, Armagh and Tyrone. It's said that when Offaly played Down in the 1961 football final, their supporters were met with Red and Black bunting as they journeyed through Kildare on final day. The rivalries are old and the schadenfreude that welcomes defeat may be a part of the local traditions, but this does nothing for the respect for counties in the largest province or their annual competition.

Maybe all Leinster people could consider this when selecting teams to cheer for on the next two weekends.