Say it ain’t so, Joe

FEW in the 5,000 at the Galway SFC semi-finals last September who gave Joe Kernan a rapturous welcome when, in an impromptu moment by football board chairman John Joe Holleran, he was introduced to the crowd, could have envisaged the Tribesmen’s 2010 championship would implode in such a dramatic fashion.

Connacht titles had failed to keep Liam Sammon and, before him, Peter Ford in the job as Galway set about recapturing the All-Ireland glory days of 1998 and 2001.

But the quality of footballer which John O’Mahony honed to win All-Irelands just isn’t there in Galway any more, a point magnified by 33-year old Padraic Joyce being their best player in each of their four championship outings this year.