Football legend Joyce hangs up the boots

Date Published: 29-Nov-2012

ONE of Gaelic football’s greatest forwards of modern times – Killererin’s Padraic Joyce – has this week officially confirmed his retirement from inter-county football, calling time on a career that has spanned three decades.

The three times All-Star winner made his last appearance for Galway in the All-Ireland qualifiers this Summer in Casement Park, when Antrim recorded a surprise success over Alan Mulholland’s side.

Joyce (35), will however be remembered as one of the greatest ever forwards to come out of Galway football, producing two classic attacking displays in the 1998 All-Ireland success against Kildare (1-14 to 1-10), when he scored 1-1, and in the 2001 defeat of Meath (0-17 to 0-8) when he landed 10 points.

That 2001 success was a special one for the Joyce family in that Padraic’s brother, Tommie, also lined out at corner forward on the team managed by John O’Mahony.

A product of the St. Jarlath’s College footballing academy, where he won a Hogan Cup medal in 1994 when defeating St. Patrick’s Maghera in the All-Ireland final, he went on to represent Galway at all levels.

He scooped All-Star awards in 1998, 2000 and 2001, and would probably have picked up at least a couple more, had Galway not entered one of their valley periods in terms of championship success over the past decade.

Texaco footballer of the year in 2001, when he ‘ran away’ with the top scorers accolade in that championship series, he also played 11 times with the Irish International Rules side against Australia, captaining them in 2004 and 2005.

First and foremost, Joyce was an absolutely dedicated club footballer, always ‘pushing out the boat’ to drive on Killererin to success in the Galway championships.

Joyce was a seminal figure in Killererin’s four county final successes in 1999, 2004, 2007 and 2010 – this year he was the top scorer ‘by a country mile’ in the Galway senior football championship.

A complete ‘natural’ with the ball, Joyce complemented this talent with an absolute dedication to the game, that helped keep him as one of the country’s top forwards over the past 15 years.

He formed a great partnership and understanding with his former St. Jarlath’s colleague, Michael Donnellan – another of the game’s outstanding individual talents – through the late 1990s and for a good chunk of the following decade.

It is not clear whether Joyce will continue to play club football with Killererin, but the nephew of former Galway star, Billy Joyce, is expected to make up his mind on that issue early in the New Year.

A six times Connacht title winner – 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 – he is one of the Galway forwards that will forever be mentioned in the same breath as a Sean Purcell, Frank Stockwell, John Keenan or Michael Donnellan.