Joyce: 'Penalties are for soccer, it's not for GAA in my eyes'

Galway boss Padraic Joyce is adamant that penalties shootouts have no place in Gaelic football.

HUG IT OUT: Galway manager Padraic Joyce celebrates with Damien Comer after their All-reland SFC quarter-final win over Armagh and Galway at Croke Park. 

Galway came out the right side of them but Padraic Joyce is adamant that penalties shootouts have no place in Gaelic football.

Level after 90-plus minutes of football, inseparable after combing for five goals and 39 points, it is the Galway manager’s conviction that the counties should have been allowed to retreat from the scene and come again another day.

"My heart goes out to Kieran McGeeney and the Armagh team and supporters because it's no way to lose a match, a quarter-final. We're condensing this season into six or seven months, which is crazy, to be honest.

“Both sets of players, Galway and Armagh, have trained flat out since last December. Let's call a spade a spade, that's no way to lose a match. 

"While we'll take the victory, my heart goes out to them because they added great colour and support today.

“It's not the way to do it. It's something the GAA need to look at because we're not soccer. Penalties are for soccer, it's not for GAA in my eyes. Fair play to the Armagh and Galway players that took the penalties, and the two keepers. But it's a pure lottery.” 

He may not like them but it is Joyce’s job to make sure that his team is prepared for every eventuality and the slick execution displayed by his four takers was no accident given they had been practising them assiduously since last December.

Joyce, like his counterpart, was firm in stating that the ugly scenes which marred the occasion “shouldn’t be happening” but he was bemused by the decision to show Sean Kelly a red card prior to extra-time as a result.

The fallout from that fracas is likely to run through the news cycle for the next week or two but, whatever fate awaits certain individuals, Joyce hinted strongly that Galway will be challenging the Moycullen defender’s dismissal in the days to come.