‘The dressing room is in an awful state’ – Pádraic Joyce says there’s no hiding from Galway’s second final loss in three years

“We’re absolutely devastated. The dressing room is in an awful state. Firstly, congratulations to Armagh and congratulations to Kieran McGeeney on the job he’s done with them. You can’t take that away from them. They won the game.

“We have to be realistic here. We didn’t play anywhere near our potential in the second half. We probably made more mistakes in the second half than we’ve made in all the games all year.

Heartbreak for Galway fans watching the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final at the South Galway Bay Music Festival

“Look, it’s going to be hard to take. We had 25 shots on goal and we scored 13. I’m not going to sit here and criticise players because they’re great lads in Galway.

“The effort that they’ve put in for me all year, and the last five years, has been fantastic. It’s just hard to put your finger on how we didn’t perform the way we should have performed.”

He didn’t use the side’s injury troubles as a mitigating factor.

“I don’t think the injuries caught up. The injuries didn’t kick the ball wide or take the shots. It wasn’t injuries catching up with us. No one goes out to play bad. Just not enough of our players hit form.

“Rob [Finnerty] was a big loss to us as well early on. That probably impacted most of the decisions we made as well, as regards substitutions all day. Look, it’s very hard to stomach it.”

The days and weeks ahead will leave much scope for soul-searching as Galway’s All-Ireland wait stretches to at least a 24th year, their hopes having shot up after they knocked out the reigning champions Dublin in the quarter-finals.

“It’s going to haunt us for a while,” said Joyce. “We had a great chance after a super year. Both teams did. We knew coming into it that someone was going to be disappointed and someone was going to be elated. We’re going to regret it for a long time.”