Padraic Joyce made no attempt to hide his disappointment after Galway’s second All-Ireland SFC final loss in three years.

“We’re absolutely devastated. The dressing room is in an awful state,” the Galway manager told reporters after the one-point defeat to Armagh.

“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 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 refused to use his side’s injury problems as an excuse, adding: “The injuries didn't kick the ball wide or take the shots. It wasn't injuries catching up with us. No-one goes out to play bad. Just not enough of our players hit form.

"Rob [Finnerty] was a big loss to us as well early on. That probably impacted most of the decisions we made as well, as regards substitutions all day. Look, it's very hard to stomach it."

“We're going to regret it for a long time.”

Tweet

Most Read Stories