Delighted Joyce knows biggest test still lies ahead

STEPHEN Joyce has been one of the great foot soldiers of Galway football over the past 40 years. Apart from lining out as an archetypal corner forward for the county during the eighties, he gave long and sterling service to his club Clonbur, both as a player and mentor.

Joyce, of course, was also one of John O’Mahony’s righthand men when Galway delivered the Sam Maguire Cup back west in 1998 and 2001. He owes football in the county nothing, but his passion for the game and the maroon jersey remains undiluted.

Now in his second season as Galway minor football manager, Joyce has already steered them to two Connacht titles and stands sixty minutes away from guiding the team to the county’s seventh All-Ireland title at this level and the first since 2007.

Though Galway captured the provincial crown in 2015, Joyce’s first year in charge had a difficult climax when they lost to Tipperary in the All-Ireland quarter-final in Tullamore and with only a handful of survivors from that team, he nearly had to start all over again this year.

It was a challenge Joyce, along with his selectors Jason Taniane and Terence Morgan, embraced and they have moulded together even a better squad in 2016 as was underlined when they overcame a highly regarded Donegal outfit at Croke Park last Sunday.

Galway had to work hard for victory, but they were the better and more instinctive team in forging a hardly flattering 2-12 to 1-11 victory. Joyce was naturally delighted afterwards: “I am very happy for the players as they have put a lot of work in.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.