Pádraic Joyce, John Divilly and John Concannon were chief among them – school teams, Galway minor teams, Galway senior teams. Selectors then, selectors now.
“Myself, Pádraic and John, we went to school in first year together and we’ve been best friends ever since,” recalls Concannon. “We played football [together] all our underage careers, all the way up. We’ve kept in touch even when the lads went to college.
“We were picking teams at the back of class, we were doing that all our lives. We used to leave Divilly off a lot of the teams, so he wasn’t too happy! But we have a brilliant relationship.”
They played together on a Galway minor team that lost an All-Ireland final to Kerry in 1994 – probably along with Dublin’s 2011 U-18 vintage, the greatest not to achieve minor success, given the numbers (eight) that went on to win All-Ireland SFC titles in 1998 and 2001.
Concannon wasn’t among them but he should have been, as the leading underage attacking light in Galway in that era. But injury and a failure to properly commit, as he has acknowledged himself in the past, stalled his progress.
But he took to management and guided Milltown to the 2007 Galway SFC final, in which they lost to a Joyce-inspired Killererin. And when Joyce was appointed Galway manager in 2019, he got the old band back together. Only this time the selections were real.
They’ve had a bumpy ride at times, admits Concannon. “The last five years, there have been strains. There have been tough times. If you lose, you’re always wondering, should you be here? Should you not be here? Is the friendship a distraction? Is it a hindrance?”
They have persevered and now arrive back in an All-Ireland final for the second time in three years. The difference between now and then? Concannon is sure Galway have stronger reserves.
“After 2022, the narrative out there, and it was probably correct, was that we didn’t have a bench to beat Kerry,” he reflects. “We were level with seven/eight minutes to go. Kerry had a few lads come off the bench, and they got a point here and there. We did work on it from then on.”
They’ve made three changes in defence in the two years with Johnny McGrath, Seán Fitzgerald and Seán Mulkerrin displacing Kieran Molloy and John Daly, while Seán Kelly has pushed further upfield when fit.
McGrath, Fitzgerald and Jack Glynn, corner-back in 2022, were their 2020 All-Ireland winning U-20 full-back line that has been transplanted, en masse, to the senior team.
“They don’t get enough credit, in my opinion, for the amount of minutes they played,” he suggests, estimating that McGrath and Fitzgerald haven’t missed a game in 2024.
“They’re never injured. They’ve kept some of the best footballers, the best forwards in Ireland, quiet all through the league and so far in the championship.
“It’s their lack of inhibitions and their carefree attitude that they actually don’t mind who they’re playing against. They just go out and play the game. They don’t care about the bigger teams where maybe some of the older lads might have been that way in the past.
“The experience gained from two years ago is counting for something too, especially in those tight games that they’ve come out on top in quite a bit this season.
“Some of our more experienced players had never played in a semi-final or final before, so now we have that experience. In all the tight matches so far, that experience has helped us get over the line in the games, especially against Dublin and even the last day against Donegal.”
In each of the five years they’ve been together, Concannon says there hasn’t been a year when they didn’t believe they couldn’t win an All-Ireland title.
“It’s a fresh start every year. I know it is his fifth year, but Pádraic treats it like a business – a new year, new targets. The target is to win the All-Ireland every year and we’re still there at the moment.”
As to those teams picked at the back of the class in Jarlath’s, did Joyce have the final word then?
“No, he wasn’t the boss that time, but I won’t tell you who was!”
