Joyce disappointed following narrow final defeat

By Cian O’Connell

“We’re absolutely devastated,” Galway manager Padraic Joyce reflected following Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final loss to Armagh at Croke Park.

“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 that they’ve 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.”

Joyce acknowledged that Rob Finnerty’s injury enforced departure early on was significant. “Rob was a big loss to us as well early on,” Joyce remarked.

“That probably impacted most of the decisions we made as well as regards substitutions all day. Look, it’s very hard to stomach it.”

It will be difficult to deal with the manner of the narrow defeat according to Joyce. “It’s going to haunt us for a while,” Joyce says.

“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.”