Ruthless Joyce not afraid of making big calls as he plots ultimate success

Irish Daily Mirror

2 days ago

No-one is safe and reputations count for very little in the inner circle of Padraic Joyce's Galway school of hard knocks.
Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, F, G and more exist to prove it.
From the outside, it appears a cut throat environment, where you underperform at your peril.
If there were big egos there, they've long since been bruised or downsized. And if anyone believed they were indispensable, they were wrong.
There's a hard nosed feel, and a refusal to be beaten in their performances that's reflected in how they continue to be managed.
Maybe it's a symptom of being on the road for so long - this is Joyce's sixth season - and Galway having to suck up heartbreaking All-Ireland final defeats in 2022 and 2024.
It certainly looks like they won't stop at anything to get over the line - and if there are casualties along the way, then so be it. There already have been.
From Footballers of the Year, to generational forward talents, to first choice goalkeepers, Joyce and his management team have dropped or pulled them all - and more.
If their straight talking manager feels like someone has underperformed, he has no problem saying it publicly either.
It almost feels like the Galway players are getting used to it.
Shane Walsh - one of those to get the curly finger and bit of a tongue lashing earlier this year - shrugged it off at a press conference last week, saying: 'We could nearly be laughing and joking about some of the things he'd (Joyce) say about us in the media.'
In last weekend's All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final encounter with Down at Newry, reigning Footballer of the Year, Paul Conroy was whipped after 47 minutes and no-one batted an eyelid.
Joyce wasn't even asked about it afterwards as this type of move, which most other managers wouldn't even dream of, has become such a regular occurrence.
Some would be aghast at the notion of taking off one of the best two point shooters in the game with a knockout championship game hanging in the balance.
But the Galway players appear to have grown comfortable in such scenarios.
By that stage of the season, Conroy had also been hauled ashore against Dublin (53 minutes) and Derry (49 minutes) and was only a sub against Armagh, albeit one that made enough of an impact to earn a recall for last weekend.
In Derry, Cillian McDaid, one of the most powerful engines in the team and a proven big game player, left the field at the same time as Conroy with Galway's season hanging in the balance.
At the time, it was one hell of a statement that left many aghast, as Matthew Tierney's fortunate enough late goal saw a hard finishing Galway side survive an almighty scare.
Against Mayo in the Connacht Final, Cathal Sweeney was brought on and taken off after 26 minutes.
But he offered a massive response against Armagh, intercepting a kickout to create Finnerty's vital goal in another squeaky bum moment.
The flip side of all this flux is that Galway trust their bench, are prepared to use it, and what this does for the quality of their training when everyone feels they have a chance of playing and no-one is guaranteed anything.
Conroy's replacement against Down, Peter Cooke, came in and won three vital kickouts at a time when Galway were struggling to get Conor Flaherty's restarts. Cooke also kicked a score.
Point proven and job done.
One of the Galway management's most stunning decisions though was to move away from regular goalkeeper Connor Gleeson before their recent do-or-die encounter with Armagh.
Gleeson has been Joyce's number one for the vast majority of his six years in charge - and he's regularly defended him publicly amid bouts of criticism over the years.
To drop your goalie six years in, with your season hanging in the balance, was a huge call.
And while Flaherty struggled against Armagh, with too many kickouts dribbling over the sideline, Galway got enough from other areas to get the job done.
Last Sunday in Newry, Flaherty started again and had a ropey spell in the second half with Gleeson warming up - changing goalie midstream is a move you rarely see but no-one would have been shocked in Galway's case.
Then Flaherty nailed a brilliant kickout to his left - hitting Cooke. He was back in business again and the change wasn't made.
God knows which goalie will start at Croke Park this weekend, with Meath's highly effective kickout press. We won't hear until 45 minutes before throw-in.
It's not only goalies in the firing line. The defenders - bar Johnny McGrath and Sean Kelly - aren't safe either, although Dylan McHugh and Liam Silke have money in the bank.
The other two defensive positions could be anyone from Sean Fitzgerald and Cian Hernon - who both started against Down - to Sean Mulkerrin, Daniel O'Flaherty and Jack Glynn, who've all started regularly this year.
Two from five for next weekend's encounter with Meath. Glynn and Mulkerrin didn't get in against Down, but O'Flaherty hit two points off the bench.
We don't know fully about injury profiles and players' ability to last the pace, but the way John Daly fell out of favour last year was scarcely believable to most.
Daly won an All Star as a brilliant kicking number six in 2022 and Galway's fulcrum, but as they moved towards a running game and favouring man markers, he lost out to players like Fitzgerald and Mulkerrin.
Even this year, many would have assumed with the new rules that Galway would look for the kicking dimension Daly provides, but this hasn't happened.
Johnny Heaney looked like one of their non-negotiables two years ago, but he fell out of favour around the same time as Daly.
Heaney got eight minutes as a temporary sub at the weekend and has seen little game time this year, while Daly came on for the last four minutes.
Kieran Molloy was one who got a shot in public after a game last year. He's seen bits and pieces of game time since, but spent a long time on the bench without any.
Earlier this year, against Dublin at Croke Park in the League, both Walsh and Finnerty were gone by half-time, Finnerty three minutes before it, following a series of misses from routine chances.
It later emerged Walsh had an injury and he didn't play again until the round robin encounter with Dublin.
But, the duo weren't spared when the inevitable post match press conference questions that come with such big moves duly arrived. It was a taster of what was to come.
If All-Irelands were handed out for big calls and ballsy moves, then one would be on the way to Galway.