Pádraic Joyce left Galway in a better place than he found them but the sense of wasted promise will linger

Of all the things that will pick away at Pádraic Joyce now that he has stepped down as Galway manager, maybe the one that will annoy him most is that they were good enough to be better. Some managers leave teams knowing they got the very last drop out of the players available, some walk away knowing they hadn’t the tools in the first place. Joyce wouldn’t have much truck with either assessment here.

In the seven seasons he was over Galway, five different counties won the All-Ireland. Of those five, Kerry are the only team Galway didn’t beat in a championship game somewhere along the way. Armagh, Dublin, Tyrone, Mayo – Joyce’s Galway teams were well fit for each of them on a given day. They knocked Donegal out in Jim McGuinness’s first year back, put Derry to the sword in 2022 when they were clearly a coming force.