Kevin Walsh transformed Galway into hard-to-beat contenders during his five years on the whirligig. In year four they came closest – losing a league final and All-Ireland semi-final to Dublin in 2018, either side of conquering Connacht for the second time under Walsh.
But the style of football was a recurring source of angsty debate. It wasn’t the ‘Galway way’, so the naysayers complained, especially when results turned.
Enter Pádraic Joyce, initially preaching greater use of the boot and a more direct approach. But it took a couple of years of painful evolution, scarcely helped by the intrusions of Covid, before Galway emerged as genuine All-Ireland contenders, first reaching the 2022 final against Kerry and now hoping to go one step further against Armagh.
Reflecting on Galway’s journey to Sunday’s final, and the game-plan that’s underpinned it, Walsh spies similarities with his own team. “To be honest, I think the first two years [under Joyce] were completely opposites but the last three years I think have gone really much back to where it was,” he surmises.
“But then you have different personnel so it’s kind of unfair to say it’s exactly the same; it’s not. Cian O’Neill is in there doing some great work with Divo [John Divilly] there as well, so they’ve got their own systems inside to take the space. Some of it is arc defences, some of it straight-line defences, but you’re clogging the same areas as such.
“Then you’ve got to have the horses to carry out the roles,” he adds. “This team has evolved so much in the last five years in personnel, it’s probably unfair to say it’s this or that; but it’s kind of gone similar to what we were doing, albeit different roles with people.”
The Killannin man has spent two years coaching Cork but won’t be making any call on his Leeside future until he meets up with manager John Cleary, who has recently recommitted for 2025.
Speaking as an Allianz ambassador ahead of Sunday’s showdown, his focus is all about whether Galway can break their 23-year Sam Maguire duck.
Walsh was a long-serving veteran and Joyce a much younger tyro when, in 1998, the pair both won All-Ireland medals and All-Stars, repeating that double in 2001.
Joyce is now in his fifth year as Galway boss while Kieran McGeeney is 10 years with Armagh. “All these things take time,” he says. “It shouldn’t come down to inexperience on Sunday, because they’ve been through all that process.
“For us in our time, 2018 was definitely where our peak was coming in. We went through Division 1 unbeaten. But it took us a long time to get to that point.
“It’s about getting that continuity and that structure in place. But as someone has said, the U-20s are now coming through from four years ago to help this current squad, so it is a bit similar to us in 1998 when the U-21s came through to help us as the older guys. So, I think it’s a good mix of players.”
Asked if he could take satisfaction from leaving Galway well positioned for Joyce to build on, he points out: “When we took over there was a fair bit of flak going on because of the old tradition of Galway football and stuff like that.
“For me, when you’re in possession, you make space – and when you’re out of possession you take the space that’s crucial to you. It’s almost like a warfare. So, up and down the field is brilliant for the eye, it’s brilliant for spectators where it’s man-to-man battles everywhere – but you’ll find that the best games are where most mistakes were made because there’s transitions all the time going on.
“I suppose there was a big shift for Galway people to say, ‘Jeepers, this is different’ but it’s now what’s acceptable in the whole country. Yeah, when we look back, we make no apologies for it. We brought Galway to a place where they were continuously competing to win and that’s where we needed to get to.
“Looking back on it, our first championship game against Mayo where we kind of got them a bit closer and an OG went in the same day. Some Mayo lads were giving us a bit of stick afterwards … and the same happened with Kerry, we ended up going down and beating them [in the 2018 league]. When they weren’t telling us we were lovely footballers, we were doing something right.
“So we progressed that along and by 2018 we were right up there at the top; 2019 was a bit of a disaster, a heap of injuries didn’t help us. But we were still competitive, and it was the system and everything that kept us there.”
With Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee currently evaluating a potential future direction for an oft-maligned sport, Walsh makes it clear that he would “welcome rule changes. I don’t think it has to be massive, but I think it needs to be more often.”
And if he had the choice to introduce just one new rule? “What I’d love to do,” he says, “is keep a certain amount of people up and a certain amount of people back, whether that be four up past the ‘45. I just genuinely think that’s the biggest one that could make this right.”
