Padraic Joyce Retires - A true Legend - End of an era in Galway Football.

Lapin

A sign of a true team player in any sport is his determination to stick by his team even long after their glory days have passed.

Joyce has constantly turned out for his county and continued to show leadership years after many had him written off.

Stepping down over 11 years after Galway last won the Sam Maguire shows his commitment to stick by his team even in bleak times.

A true legend who owes his county and the game of football nothing.

Thanks for the memories and great days out !

Yellowblackbird

Completely unmarkable when he was in the groove.

Fr Tod Umptious

It's a pity for him that Galway have done nothing on the All Ireland stage since 2001 (have not got past QF)
His 15 odd year career will only be remembered for the first few years of it.

Fr Tod Umptious

Lapin wrote: »

A sign of a true team player in any sport is his determination to stick by his team even long after their glory days have passed.

Joyce has constantly turned out for his county and continued to show leadership years after many had him written off.

Stepping down over 11 years after Galway last won the Sam Maguire shows his commitment to stick by his team even in bleak times.

A true legend who owes his county and the game of football nothing.

Thanks for the memories and great days out !

I don't get how that which I have highlighted is such a big deal OP

He was in his prime age wise for most of the past 11 years when Galway have struggled.

He was only doing what any other player of his age would be going, i.e playing.

It's not as if he is now 40 and has decided to retire after trying to carry the team from the age of 35 onwards

Cosmo Kramer

Even at the very end of his career, when he didn't have a full seventy minutes in him, he was still Galway's most influential player even though he was only featuring in the last twenty of matches. Easily the best overall player I've seen in my 25 years watching Connacht football. It's a pity for him that he didn't have better players alongside him for all but the first five years of his career.

Utopia Parkway

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I don't get how that which I have highlighted is such a big deal OP

He was in his prime age wise for most of the past 11 years when Galway have struggled.

He was only doing what any other player of his age would be going, i.e playing.

It's not as if he is now 40 and has decided to retire after trying to carry the team from the age of 35 onwards

In fairness he could easily have retired 5 years ago and it was rumoured most years that he was about to but he kept playing. Even though the injuries were obviously beginning to add up.

An unbelievable servant to Galway football. Whether he won his All-Ireland's at the beginning, middle or end of his career matters not a jot. You take them whenever you can.

Aiel

It was a pleasure to watch him over the last 15 years.His drop of the shoulder "dummy" kick/solo outfoxed even the most experienced defenders time and again.Defenders knew he was going to do it yet would still go to put a block in thinking "this time hes definetely going to kick it" only for him to just solo passed them:).
The guy i think who did the best Man Marking job on him was his old college friend in Tralee I.T Seamus Moynihan of Kerry.

ShamoBuc

Super player - Galway will miss him a lot.

Max Power

Pure class.

ElChe32

A class act a real footballing icon young lads should be looking up to!

Always_Running

One of the best was a joy to watch him play. The younger Galway forwards could learn a thing or two from him i wonder will he go into coaching?

blowitupref

Great player that gave his all for Galway will be best remembered for his 2001 All Ireland display however, in 2010 when New York were on the verge of one of the biggest ever shocks it was Joyce that pulled them through. His last top performance against decent opposition was probably v Mayo in 2008 Connacht final.

Utopia Parkway

Always_Running wrote: »

One of the best was a joy to watch him play. The younger Galway forwards could learn a thing or two from him i wonder will he go into coaching?

Interviewed for the news this evening and has said he hopes to manage Galway some day. Time for him to start producing some mini-Joyces now.

c_man

Will be missed. What a player.

Peanut Butter Jelly

As a Mayo man, Padraic has caused me manys a heartache. I have nothing but respect for him, and he will leave a pretty big void in the Galway team.

Skidfingers

top player, wish him luck! Can see him going into management

aidan24326

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Time for him to start producing some mini-Joyces now.

Any chance we could get him hooked up with Cora Staunton? Provided they're living in Galway of course :pac:

fearruanua

aidan24326 wrote: »

Any chance we could get him hooked up with Cora Staunton? Provided they're living in Galway of course :pac:

jaysus, amix of padraic joyce and cora staunton. he/she would have to be good:D

drumslate

Great player! Wish him luck

Comic Book Guy

Top top player who was unmarkable on his day.

Second half of 2001 All Ireland final was his best display for me, especially given how Darren fay had pretty much cleaned him out first half.
Having siad that his second half performance against kerry in the drawn 2000 final when moved to centre forward was top notch stuff too, and he was only a fist pass from greedy derek savage away from completing a remarkable comeback and win.

Will be missed and thats from a Rossie

Ando's Saggy Bottom

Class act and a pleasure to watch do his stuff over the years.

rpurfield

still have nightmares about him ripping meath apart in 01 a truly great player and at least he got some all irelands to his name as many top players havent!

Utopia Parkway

Keith Duggan wrote a typically fantastic piece on the great man's career last weekend in the Irish Times for those who missed it.

The Irish Times - Saturday, December 1, 2012
Joyce's career an amalgam of style, substance and commitment


KEITH DUGGAN

SIDELINE CUT: They pronounce the name with a scything flatness and to all Galwegians, Pádraic Joyce was always either “Jiyce” or “PJ”.

Ever since his star-bursting summer of 1998, Joyce has eclipsed West of Ireland politicians, singers and television stars in terms of instant recognition and importance. The significance you attach to the news this week that he is to retire from Galway football depends on how well you understand Ireland.

The late lamented John McGahern remarked in a radio interview during the height of the silliness that Ireland had changed more in the last 15 years than in the previous 200. He may have been a bit previous in that pronouncement but there is no question that in a bewilderingly fast and false period it was difficult to be certain of what had substance and what was mere illusion. Through it all, Gaelic games remained one of the most trustworthy prisms through which to interpret the country. And within that framework, Joyce possessed a brightness that was impossible to ignore.

It was pure serendipity that Galway happened to have a talented filmmaker in its squad and that John O’Mahony was sufficiently liberal to allow Pat Comer to capture the 1998 season as it unfolded, from the unspeakably black nights which characterise the west of Ireland winters to the hallucinatory days which followed their September All-Ireland victory. That victory, of course, bridged the gap to Galway’s eternally Brylcreemed bunch of 1964, ’65,’66.

The three-in-a-row side conferred on Galway a permanent place in football’s hierarchy. They were, as the Italians say, made men. It didn’t matter that they could go through moribund years where they scarcely caused a ripple on the football summer. Deep down, there was a sense that a latent greatness lurked within those flickering maroon teams. And they rushed from nowhere in 1998.

Joyce was the kid on that team, the black-haired full forward with the deceptively quick step and an uncanny knack for making space and kicking these heartbreakingly perfect scores. He scored the goal that tilted the All-Ireland final against Kildare in Galway’s favour and celebrated it with the slightly furtive gesture that would become emblematic: head bowed and arm held aloft.

Joyce was from the football heartland of east Galway; the family was a football family and he had schooled at St Jarlath’s. He followed the same path as Seán Purcell had done in the 1940s. He won two All-Irelands in three seasons and when the arc of Galway’s football team began to decline – and it was a slow curve – he could have taken a quick look around and decided that it was time for him to skip town. One by one, his former team-mates began to fall away and when Michael Donnellan, the undisputed football genius of the era, walked away, Galway’s chances of winning another All-Ireland greatly diminished.

It was in the years after that, when Galway slipped back into the pack and Armagh and Tyrone engineered a football revolution, that Joyce’s real brilliance became apparent. On good days and bad days for Galway, he never failed to do something that was so brilliantly quick-witted and unexpected that it made everyone in the stadium kind of gasp.

I remember taking my son to a Connacht final when he was four. The whole kick for him was the press box because of the fact that it was an improvised lorry. Of the game, he said only: “The number 11 did everything.” Depressingly, he had summed up in five words what I intended taking a 1,000 to explain – there was no more scathing indictment of the futility of this job. Joyce was the No 11 that day.

I interviewed him just once, on the occasion of his captaincy of the Irish International Rules team. He was dead pleasant and just as moderate; like many GAA players, he has made a career out of saying very little in public because if he said what he actually thought about things, he would undoubtedly come across as too caustic and sharp.

On summer days of Galway disappointment, we watched him walk quickly out of dressing rooms in Roscommon or Salthill, bag thrown over his shoulder and head bowed and figured that that would be his exit from Galway football. But for 16 seasons, he showed up for more. He couldn’t not.

In recent seasons, he has become a totemic figure in Galway football. The frame thickened a little and the black hair was silver dusted at the temples but the mind and eye were as quick as ever and he manufactured space and scores from nothing. You could see what he meant to younger players from across the country when they shook hands after games.

Much has changed over Pádraic Joyce’s playing career.The country became loud, tipsy and grotesque and inevitably it all fell apart. Pat Comer’s film caught a moment of Irish life at a very delicate, complex period when everything and everyone was on the verge: things were about to take off.

Watching Joyce play football on a dewy spring day in Tuam or during the height of the championship was for Galway people a vivid connection to that 1998 season but more generally, his presence was a truly eloquent example of grace and commitment and poise and belief in something real – values that were badly in want in this country. He played his heart out for as long as he could.