Louth leader Mulroy may miss entire Leinster SFC campaign 

Mulroy said the 'actual level of the injury' is 'probably worse than we had hoped' and said it could ultimately be a 'nine-week job' in terms of returning to action.

Louth defeated Meath to hold onto their Division 2 status despite the absence of Mulroy and a number of other established figures.

Speaking at the launch of AIB's sponsorship of the All-Ireland senior football championship, Mulroy described the timing of his own injury as a 'disaster'.

"In terms of the actual level of the injury, it's probably worse than we had hoped," said Mulroy, who was unsure of an exact timeline for recovery. "It's really hard to tell. They're kind of saying seven to nine weeks, a nine-week job. It's going to be a case of seeing what my body can do. I'm getting a bit older so it's not helping the healing. But I'll try my best.

"I was enjoying my football, it's a bit of a blow time-wise and when it happened but look, these things happen."

Louth supporters will be hoping that history repeats itself where Mulroy is concerned because he shaved several weeks off an anticipated 12-week recovery from a similar hamstring injury in 2023.

Back then, he made it back to inspire Louth to wins over Westmeath and Offaly on their journey to a rare Leinster final outing.

"I did something similar two years ago, kind of around the same time as well," said Mulroy, a gym owner by profession. "I got back in six weeks I think. But I was probably a lot younger and a lot less stressed when I did that. I'll see how it goes."

Mulroy described it as an injury-affected season for Louth who still managed to hold onto their Division 2 status.

"For the Meath match, I think we were missing eight starters from the Donegal game, last year's All-Ireland quarter-final," he said.

"We had no Conor Grimes, no Craig Lennon, I think it was Ciaran Downey's first start in three or four weeks. We had no Dan Corcoran, no 'Kiki' Keenan, these are all stars and big players for us, 'Casey' Byrne. There have been any amount of injuries. This league campaign has just hindered us a little bit so it was a massive result against Meath, obviously for what was at stake, but also for the group to be able to perform like we did without some of those key players."

Mulroy said the Louth/Meath game was a tough watch, given his own situation and the high stakes on the line regarding potential relegation.

"It was horrible," he said. "I don't know how people watch Gaelic football games like that, when you have people involved or it's something you really care about. I understand now what my Mam and Dad were giving out about for all those years trying to watch games.

"It's a completely different ball game, sitting and watching, having no control over anything. And you're on your phone seeing the other results. Obviously, Down were beating Monaghan so it wasn't great, yeah, just pretty nerve-wrecking."