Leinster Senior Football Championship
The Leinster Senior Football Championship is the premier "knockout" competition in the game of Gaelic football played in the province of Leinster in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association and are played during the summer months. The competition involves the counties of Leinster playing against each other. The Leinster Football Final is played in July in Croke Park, Dublin. The winning county is presented with the Delaney Cup, named after a famous Laois GAA family, and advance to the quarter finals of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
History
are the most successful county, having won the championship on 58 separate occasions, more than twice as many as their nearest rivals Meath. Up until the 1950's the success of Dublin teams was based on teams who had many non Dublin bred players playing with themWexford won 6 consecutive championships between 1913 and 1918, a feat equalled by Kildare between 1926 and 1931. It was unequalled by any other team, until Dublin won their own 6-in-a-row between 1974 and 1979. Dublin have won 9 Leinster championships in a row between 2011 - 2019.
In 1941, the Leinster Senior Football Championship was disrupted by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease but the postponed Leinster final were later rescheduled for November, with Dublin being nominated to contest the All-Ireland semi-final in advance.
In September 2019, the Leinster Council decided against awarding champions Dublin a bye into the 2020 Leinster Senior Football Championship semi-finals; instead the system as it had until then been was maintained with Dublin as one of four 2019 semi-finalists to be given a bye into the 2020 Leinster SFC quarter-finals. Leinster did, though, introduce a semi-final draw scheduled for the Sunday night when all quarter-final winners are confirmed, meaning that semi-finalists would not know if they were on Dublin's side of the draw until two weeks before such an encounter.
Teams
The Leinster championship is contested by 11 of the 12 counties in Leinster. Kilkenny is currently the only county not to compete, last doing so in 1982. Wicklow is the only one of the counties to have never won a Leinster Championship.Format
The Leinster Football Championship is run on a knock-out basis, whereby a team is eliminated from the competition once they lose. All of the counties of Leinster except Kilkenny participate in the championship. The draw is seeded, with the previous year's semi-finalists getting byes to the quarter-finals. Six of the remaining seven teams are drawn for three preliminary round matches, while the seventh team also gets a bye to the quarter-finals.Roll of honour
Finals
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Managers
in the Leinster Championship are involved in the day-to-day running of the team, including the training, team selection, and sourcing of players from the club championships. Their influence varies from county-to-county and is related to the individual county boards. From 2018, all inter-county head coaches must be Award 2 qualified. The manager is assisted by a team of two or three selectors and an extensive backroom team consisting of various coaches. Prior to the development of the concept of a manager in the 1970s, teams were usually managed by a team of selectors with one member acting as chairman.| Manager | Team | Wins | Winning years |
| Seán Boylan | Meath | 8 | 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1996, 1999, 2001 |
| Kevin Heffernan | Dublin | 7 | 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985 |
| Jim Gavin | Dublin | 7 | 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 |
| Paul Caffrey | Dublin | 4 | 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 |
| Tom Gilhooley | Offaly | 3 | 1971, 1972, 1973 |
| Eugene McGee | Offaly | 3 | 1980, 1981, 1982 |
| Pat O'Neill | Dublin | 3 | 1993, 1994, 1995 |
| Mick O'Dwyer | Kildare Laois | 3 | 1998, 2000, 2003 |
| Pat Gilroy | Dublin | 3 | 2009, 2011, 2012 |
| Tony Hanahoe | Dublin | 2 | 1977, 1978 |
| Tommy Lyons | Offaly Dublin | 2 | 1997, 2002 |
| Gerry McCaul | Dublin | 1 | 1989 |
| Paddy Cullen | Dublin | 1 | 1992 |
| Páidí Ó Sé | Westmeath | 1 | 2004 |
| Éamonn O'Brien | Meath | 1 | 2010 |
Records and statistics
Teams by decade
The most successful team of each decade, judged by number of Leinster Senior Football Championship titles, is as follows:- 1880s: 1 each for Kilkenny and Laois
- 1890s: 7 for Dublin
- 1900s: 6 for Dublin
- 1910s: 6 for Wexford
- 1920s: 5 for Dublin
- 1930s: 3 each for Kildare, Dublin and Laois
- 1940s: 3 for Meath
- 1950s: 3 each for Louth, Meath and Dublin
- 1960s: 3 each for Offaly, Dublin and Meath
- 1970s: 6 for Dublin
- 1980s: 4 for Dublin
- 1990s: 4 each for Meath and Dublin
- 2000s: 6 for Dublin
- 2010s: 9 for Dublin
Other records
Gaps
- Longest gaps between successive Leinster titles:
- * 57 years: Laois
- * 44 years: Meath
- * 42 years: Kildare
- * 31 years: Louth
- * 20 years: Wexford
Most successive titles
- 9 in a row
- * Dublin
- 6 in a row
- * Wexford
- * Kildare
- * Dublin
- 5 in a row
- * Dublin