Pádraic Joyce: 'The team that started, the team that finished. To a man, our lads were outstanding'

Pádraic Joyce took a gamble with Damien Comer and Shane Walsh - they got the win but was it at a cost? 

GAMBLED: Galway manager Pádraic Joyce with Shane Walsh. Pic: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Galway won’t make any apologies for cheering a rare victory over Dublin, says Pádraic Joyce.

Rare in the sense that Dublin suffered only a third championship defeat since the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Donegal.

“Of course, Dublin have lost two games in Croke Park in 10 years, that's the third one. So look for us and everybody writing us off and not giving us a chance, not giving us the respect we deserve as a team that's undefeated all year long, you know?

“So look, it was a fantastic win for us. The team that started, the team that finished, we were forced into it. But to a man, I thought our lads were absolutely outstanding.

“And, yeah, there's emotional scenes at the end there. Maybe you can say some people we might have over-celebrated a bit, but any day you beat one of the best teams that has played football for 10, 15 years, you should be very, very happy.

“I know there's nothing won, but we'll get them calmed down. We'll get them back again here in two weeks time, ready for an All-Ireland semi final.” 

The 90-year wait to beat Dublin in championship wasn’t one Joyce was keen to dwell on when this was only their eighth SFC meeting since 1934. 

“People have to realise, we haven't met Dublin (a lot). I played for Galway for 14 years, I never came across Dublin in a championship game.” 

Joyce admitted Galway may have retreated too much in the first half. “I just felt that probably showed a little bit too much respect. In a way, didn't push out enough. But obviously, I felt that Dublin when they started the three lads (James McCarthy, Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion), they were going to come at us hard. We knew that, we probably didn't start our games as tough, as good as we should the last couple of games.

“So they had the aces, probably on the pitch from the start, no more than ourselves. So it was a real battle, real proper championship match, gung-ho all the time. Some fantastic football played on both sides. Fantastic scores, blocked tackles.

“Very hard to watch it when you're on the line and you're only trying to watch one team. But I'm sure people talk about rule changes being made in football but is there a need after watching a game like that, I'm not so sure. But yeah, delighted yeah.” 

For not seeing out the All-Ireland final round group game against Armagh, Galway were rightly criticised but here their finish here was superb. When they went ahead in the 67th minute, they remained ahead.

“For us to claw back and keep in the game and take it down the stretch, and you know, we've been questioned before in the past about soft mentality, not closing games out.

“But fair play to the boys, we still made hard work. We were two up, Johnny Heaney came on the run and probably should have stayed going, he'd a man inside for a goal chance, but kicked it wide. And lucky that didn't come back to haunt us, to be honest.

“And Paul (Conroy) had a free at the end as well. Two of the more experienced players, you know, we had a quick giggle there, but great we can chat about it and smile about it, but could have cost us in the end.” 

Admitting it was a gamble, Joyce explained why he started his leading men Damien Comer, Seán Kelly and Shane Walsh despite their injury concerns. “You’re a genius when it works out and you’re a clown when it doesn’t work out. There was no point in us having a bench full of Damien Comers and Shane Walshes and then bringing them on and trying to chase the game from seven or eight points down.

“We took a gamble on it and tried to keep them in the game as long as we can. We tried to keep Damien as close to the goal as we could, which worked out all right. Cein Darcy had a bit of a knock, he was a loss to us but then he came on. Obviously, the nature of injuries, we played the last six, seven, eight minutes with probably 13 fully fit bodies on the pitch, unfortunately. But we got over it.”