Galway's Padraic Joyce has called for provincial winners to be granted home advantage for their All-Ireland quarter-final from next season onwards. This year saw all four All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals played at Croke Park, but Joyce believes that that does not favour provincial winners who can face teams in the last eight coming on the back of up to three games in the qualifiers. "The system is against the provincial champions and it shouldn't be like that. Going forward, the provincial winners should get a home tie in the quarter-finals. There has to be some reward. A provincial medal is okay and it's great to win it but there's not as much 'meas' on it anymore." After his side's defeat to Kerry in the quarter-finals this year, Joyce labelled Pat O'Shea's men as one of the best teams he's came across in his days as a players but believes that the Tribesmen were up against it by travelling to Croke Park to take on the reigning All-Ireland Champions. Looking ahead to this weekend's semi-final, which is a repeat of this year's Munster SFC final, between Cork and Kerry the Galway legend has tipped the defending All-Ireland Champions to progress to their fourth All-Ireland decider in as many years. "Cork have a lot of big physical men and I think it's going to be very tight. I think Kerry will nick it by two or three points but not by a margin bigger than that. Cork will have learned from previous mistakes against Kerry at Croke Park and will look to keep it tight early on before trying to run at them in waves in the second-half, like they did in the Munster final." As of this moment, Joyce has made no decision on his future at inter-county levels, but believes a rest for the next few weeks is well deserved. "We'll see how the winter goes. The club has been knocked out of the championship and that might be no harm because we could do with a break." Tweet

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