'I've seven years done, I’ve two more to do': Pádraic Joyce remains committed to Galway

TWO MORE YEARS: Galway’s manager Padraic Joyce consoles Seán Ó Maoilchiaráin. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie.

Whatever about the views of the Galway county board executive and any reconsiderations that might arise in the coming weeks surrounding the additional two-year term Pádraic Joyce was given at the end of last season, the man himself is committed to the maroon cause all the way to 2028.

That much he made clear after his seventh year at the helm ended with a second successive All-Ireland quarter-final defeat.

“I've seven years done here now, I’ve two more to do. Galway's getting there,” he surmised post-match.

“I think we're lacking, obviously, didn't get it over the line last year. We've been in four quarter-finals now, we've lost two of them, lost two finals. It's a lot of defeats for a lot of the players there.

“Today is probably not the day to talk about that but there's still a lot of good young talent coming through in the squad. There's two or three probably on the wrong side of 30, though, at the same time. Not that they're going to decide anything in the next while, but they just have to come back again.

“The football is there in the county, so they'll always be there or thereabouts.”

Not for the first time on Joyce’s seven-year watch, the Galway restart significantly malfunctioned.

Of Connor Gleeson’s 31 kickouts, 16 were not retained. And while somewhat understandable that Gleeson would continually seek to go long given the middle-third targets of Conroy, Maher, Darcy, and Tierney he was aiming at, that not a single short restart was attempted until after Galway went a man down was most telling of a kick-out strategy that lacked for variety and nuance.

Joyce’s explanation for the heavy defeat they suffered on their own kick-out was “momentum”.

“Teams get purple patches, we can't dominate the game for a full half. Even for their goal, it was a ball on the ground that we went for, it just broke the wrong way, we lost it, and then it goes inside. It's just trying to break that momentum. It's really hard to turn it around when it's going against you.”

What Joyce also insisted went against his crew was the “baffling” decisions of referee David Gough, most especially his refusal to award Galway a 64th minute penalty.

“I don’t know did Dublin find another gear, I think they were helped find another gear along the way with some poor decisions that was given out there.

“We have an advantage on a two-pointer that John Maher catches inside the big square. He is clearly pulled to the ground from what I can see, and the [penalty] is not given because the referee told the linesman that it wasn’t a foul, so go back to the two-point free. That’s a frustrating one.”