The warning from the communications department of only a few minutes with Pádraic Joyce for his post-match thoughts was ominous. The Galway manager wasn’t in much of a mood for chat.
Two years ago, after losing a cracker to Kerry, he’d at least felt his team left the better portion of themselves out on the field. Not so this time as they huffed but barely came up with a puff of inspiration. And still nearly won.
“It’s going to haunt us for a while,” acknowledged Joyce of the missed opportunity.
“We had a great chance after a super year. Both teams did. We knew coming into it that someone was going to be disappointed and someone was going to be elated. We’re going to regret it for a long time.”
Galway shot nine wides, dropped several more attempts short and turned just 13 of their 25 shots into scores, a mere 52 per cent conversion rate compared to Armagh’s 63 per cent.
To put it even more starkly for Galway fans, analyst Stephen O’Meara noted on social media that Galway’s ‘expected score’ stat came in at 14.2 points compared to victors Armagh’s 11.6.
“We’re absolutely devastated,” said Joyce.
“The dressing-room is in an awful state. Firstly, congratulations to Armagh and congratulations to Kieran McGeeney on the job he’s done with them. You can’t take that away from them. They won the game. We have to be realistic here, we didn’t play anywhere [near] to our potential in the second half. We probably made more mistakes in the second half than we’ve made in all the games all year.
“Look, it’s going to be hard to take. We had 25 shots on goal and we scored 13. I’m not going to sit here and criticise players because they’re great lads in Galway. The effort they have put in for me all year, and the last five years, has been fantastic. It’s just hard to put your finger on how we didn’t perform the way we should have performed.”
Perhaps injuries ultimately caught up with Galway? Captain Sean Kelly was unable to start. Rob Finnerty was forced off inside 15 minutes. Shane Walsh and Damien Comer were possibly restricted by injuries too.
“I don’t think the injuries caught up,” Joyce insisted. “The injuries didn’t kick the ball wide or take the shots. It wasn’t injuries catching up with us. No one goes out to play bad, just not enough of our players hit form. Rob was a big loss to us as well early on. That probably impacted most of the decisions we made as well as regards substitutions all day. Look, it’s very hard to stomach it.”
Walsh and Comer hit just two points between them, and only one from play. Throw in Finnerty’s difficulties and the inside forward line was rendered virtually redundant. Long kicks for points were often the only option.
“You have no choice but to hit long-range shots when you’re playing against 15 men behind the ball all day,” shrugged Joyce. “There’s not much we can do there.”
Still, he felt the wides immediately after Armagh’s goal were particularly sapping.
“A couple at crucial times, yeah,” he nodded. “We just never got back level or pushed a point up and we had a couple of chances. It’s difficult. No words can put down the way I feel. I’m heartbroken for the lads more so. They’re devastated.”
Joyce won two All-Irelands as a player with Galway, in 1998 and 2001. He has now lost two as manager of his county. He said the 2022 final defeat to Kerry was an easier one to take.
“Ah yeah,” he agreed. “At least two years ago we probably weren’t . . . okay, in the last couple of minutes Kerry were the better team. But today we had chance after chance after chance. So it’s going to be hard to take. But we’ll stick together for Galway football. We’ve come a long way from where we were.
“While we’re devastated today, football in Galway has improved. At least we’re back up near the top table now. It’s going to be a tough couple of days. They can maybe hide during the middle of race week but it’s going to be a tough couple of days.”
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