Pádraic Joyce knew what reputation Galway football teams had when he was appointed manager in 2019. Even as a player, that same perception had been there.
“That is something we have looked to get into Galway, a bit more of an edge because we would probably have been seen as having a soft centre.
“But I think the lads have proved that there is a good edge to them and they can mix the game any way they want.
“[In the past], we lost games by a point coming down the stretch to teams we should not be losing to,” he recalls. “I think teams had the impression, ‘Let’s get Galway down the stretch and they will wilt or they will fold’.”
Now they’re more likely to see those games out, Mayo in the Connacht final, Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final, [and] Donegal last time out. There’s a trend.
“That perception is gone now because we have been down the stretch with some of the top teams in the country in the last year, definitely this year, and we have stuck it out.”
Even the last day, as their semi-final with Donegal wore on, Galway just looked and felt like the more likely winners.
“It is easy saying that now but at the time I did honestly feel that we were OK, solely because we had done it previously,” says Joyce.
“We did it in the Connacht final, we were two down and time almost up when Seán Kelly dispossessed Matthew Ruane for a vital turnover and we got a score off that. We win the kick-out and we get the winning score off it. I think that’s in the lads.”
In John Maher, Matthew Tierney, Paul Conroy and now Cein D’Arcy, they have height across their midfield and half-forward line that invites their goalkeeper Connor Gleeson to go long with his kick-outs in the knowledge that their chance of retention is above average.
“I wouldn’t say we purposely went after them [bigger players], but I think Galway football over the years would have been known for having nice nippy lads. John Maher has developed from what he was, he is a huge animal of a man now, Mattie Tierney has grown into a serious man as well, so look, they just happened to come around at the same time.
“Physicality down the middle eight is huge now and we have a lot of six-footers, which is great.”
Joyce is acutely aware of Galway’s place on the roll of honour, head of the chasing pack behind Kerry and Dublin on nine All-Ireland titles. When Galway beat Derry in the All-Ireland semi-final in 2022, he was happy to remind his audience in his post-match briefing of that fact.
It’s important to him and Galway to build on that heritage.
“It is important without putting the pressure on ourselves,” he said.
“This is our 10th championship match this year to try and win our 10th title. Someone told me the other day that the three-in-a-row team only played 11 matches to win three-in-a-row, so we have to win 10 to win one. But yes, it is important.”
With Armagh, they have built up quite a modern rivalry, meeting in each of the last three years. But long before that, a friendship between rival managers Joyce and McGeeney also built up, forged mainly through parallel association with International Rules squads and their counties’ competitiveness at the turn of the century.
Joyce revealed he had messaged McGeeney on the night of their draw in Sligo. The content was ‘see you in the final,’ or words to that effect.
But they also spoke by phone the following morning. The lines would not be so open among all inter-county managers, he senses, and for him, it’s only McGeeney and Jim McGuinness that he speaks to regularly.
“Just to wish each other well. We knew where we were going to go. We’ll have a chat when the final is over.”
Joyce admitted after the semi-final win over Donegal that when he took on the job in the first place he had been somewhat naive in the approach he envisaged for the team.
“We might have looked at football a little naively when I first came in, trying to outscore the opposition all the time. In fairness, to Cian O’Neill, John Divilly and Micheál Ó Dómhnaill, they have put a good structure in place.”
They’ve kept goals conceded to a minimum, just one from nine championship games, and have kept faith in Gleeson as goalkeeper, something they’ve never lost in him, Joyce emphasises.
“If you look back on his performances, he didn’t really cost us any game,” says Joyce. “Obviously, there were a couple of things in the Armagh game in 2022 with the high balls, but for me, he was only at fault for one of those goals and that is the one he handpassed out on the ground.
“Whereas a big high ball on top of you in the square and there are two Armagh lads coming in, our Galway fellows had not boxed in their men or marked their men, so they were as much to blame, but Connor took the hit for it.
“There was stuff going on there about who should be in goal, who shouldn’t be in goal, but we have always stuck with Connor. He can kick the ball 70/80 yards down the pitch and can kick it five yards if you want. I think he has developed himself and improved his game unbelievably well and probably one of his better games for us was here against Mayo last year in the game we lost,” Joyce reflects.
Any criticism “he blocks it out,” says Joyce. “He is 6’5”, 6’6”, he is 31 years of age, he is a grown man, he knows the craic.”
Joyce’s faith in Dylan McHugh has also paid strong dividends as he prospers more with each game this season. “When I first called him in, I don’t think he was making the Corofin team,” recalls Joyce.
“I think he had been left off the Corofin team a couple of times, but I saw something in him that I liked about him. It is just physically, he has got himself in unbelievable shape.”
Cillian McDaid’s return has also provided impetus after he missed the league and most of the Connacht Championship. The target, says Joyce, for a “Rolls-Royce player” was the All-Ireland quarter-final. He made it back before that.
“He is one of those players as well who loves playing in Croke Park and that is where you get the best out of him.”
