'We could be at worse things on the weekends' - Pádraic Joyce
Declan Bogue Reports from Pairc Esler
DURING THE SECOND half of their win over Down, Galway were spooked by their own kickout.
From the first ten kickouts Conor Flaherty took, they lost eight.
Of that eight, some were ugly. Real ugly. They fouled for a couple. They just didn’t compete for others. One went over the sideline. On another, Flaherty hesitated too long and referee Derek O’Mahony decided he had seen enough and awarded a free in to Down.
When O’Mahony appeared to allow Down to take it outside the scoring arc for a two-point attempt, Galway manager Padraic Joyce made a beeline for the fourth official to make it clear that, well, you can’t do that as per the rules.
At the same time, they had sub goalkeeper, once regular goalkeeper, Connor Gleeson warming up. It looked like he was going in.
“We were looking at everything,” admitted Joyce afterwards.
“We had give away three or four in a row again and just didn’t go to our kickout routine that we should have when the pressure was on. We hit a few over the sideline. So yeah, disappointed with that side of it.”
“But we’ve two good keepers in Galway. The wind was really, really strong as well and probably Conor Gleeson would have had a bit more distance. We didn’t opt for it in the end but in fairness to Conor Flaherty, he gathered himself at the end there and the two or three last kick-outs were really, really good to our main guys.
“Cein Darcy caught some brilliant ball again and Peter Cooke made a huge impact when he came off the bench as well so yeah, happy enough with it.”
This was Galway’s third game in 14 days. It’s a lot of hard yakka and – best case scenario – they will have four games in 21 days by the end of next weekend. This is the way of it now in this championship format. But all the same?
“It’s huge, it’s massive, it’s huge,” says Joyce in an effort of conveying the workload and emotional toll of such a summer season.
“But look we put ourselves in that situation so we’re not going to be complaining. We’ll get on with it. We’ll get back down the road tonight but again the big thing for us is that we’ve had three long journeys.
“We’ve been in Celtic Park, we’ve been to Breffni Park and we’re in Newry so they’re huge journeys, they’re two days travel and then trying to recover and get back down the road.
“We left Galway yesterday at 1pm and we won’t get home until about 10pm tonight so that’s part of it but it’s a privilege to be playing for Galway, being involved in Galway we could be at worse things on the weekends, to be honest.
“We could be at home doing nothing but we’re at it and we won’t complain about it but it is challenging. The main thing is to keep our players fresh and make sure we pick the right class next week.”
Asked if he would wish for a game to be scheduled on Sunday next weekend rather than a Saturday, he said, “I’m not going to ask for anything but you’d be hoping you’d get a break somewhere. It would be brilliant if we got a Sunday fixture but again it’s not my decision. whatever’s on we’ll show up and play it.”
Given the nature of the games they have played, there may be no more battle-hardened side than Galway right now.
“Yeah look, we are battle-hardened, we were battle-hardened before today but we’re battle-hardened again and we’re just testing character and all that kind of stuff again today,” added Joyce.
“Fair play to our lads, it was a bit hairy at times there but they showed their true spirits again there at the end and kicked some great scores at the end and worked really well and probably killed the clock a little bit as well.”
Down manager Conor Laverty, wore the look of genuine disappointment. In his three years in charge, he has brought a great deal back to Down. He might be helped in some ways with the game changing – Down fans could never truly stomach defensive football – but it’s not that simple.
“Bad feeling in your stomach now, sick feeling in your stomach…” he said of his emotions.
“We knew that taking any team in the country to Newry, we felt we had an opportunity to win it and we definitely didn’t think that today was gonna be our last day in the championship.
“We had massive belief in the talent that we had and the work that we have done. And in the second half there, we thought we were causing them serious problems.”
He wasn’t for taking any faint praise. He’s brought them so far. How far back, he can tell us.
“I wouldn’t say that I take heart from it because I have full belief in this Down team. I wasn’t coming here today hoping that Down were going to play well.
“I came here today with a massive belief that these players could perform at this level and that this is the standard that we want to be play at.
“But what we did talk to the players about, do you want to be coming here today to Park Esler playing in front of 14,000, people?”
He continued, “What would you rather be playing? I came to a league match here against Clare one year and there wasn’t 150 people at it out playing against teams in a Tailteann Cup there were only a couple of hundred people at them. And that’s not against the Tailteann Cup because it was a stepping stone. And in circumstances next year, you could end up being back in it, but that’s where players want to be.
“That’s where this group of young Down players with a serious mindset and a serious desire to compete at the top table, and we would have felt in games all throughout this year that it was maybe just our experience that has held us back slightly in key moments of games.”
Three years down, the great pity for this playing group and Laverty and his management team is that they begin their league campaign in 2026 in division 3, having been relegated on scoring difference and having amassed six points.
He has an example of persistence in Kieran McGeeney, who also slipped into division 3 a couple of times as Armagh manager.
“There’s nights you go home, listen, there’s nights you go home and you’d be thinking, ‘Jesus,’ after some of the league defeats this year and then getting relegated. And that really hurt, you know.
“I would have a vision of where I want Down to go and where I expect on the climb to dine at the top table, and that’s where I want.
“We don’t talk about winning Sam Maguires, we talk about we want to get to the top bracket of teams.”
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