Joyce back in the game

DOUBLE All-Ireland winner Padraic Joyce is stepping back into the Gaelic football limelight after taking over from Gerry Fahy as County U20 manager. A former Footballer of the Year (2001), Joyce also claimed three All-Stars.

Appointed to the role late last week, Joyce was one of the outstanding players of his generation, and the Killererin clubman’s decision to get involved with the Galway U20s is an obvious boost to the game locally.

Not surprisingly, following Galway’s fine run to the 2018 All-Ireland minor final, Donal Ó Fátharta has remained on at the helm of the U17s and both he and Joyce are expected to finalise their backroom set-ups in the coming week or so.

As for the Galway senior footballers, Kevin Walsh has employed Kevin Stritch to replace Paddy Tally as coach. Stritch, a native of Kilmore, Roscommon, was involved with Longford and has coached a number of other teams in the past, including Castleknock in Dublin. The rest of the backroom team has remained the same.

The Tribesmen will return to action in a revamped FBD League on January 13. Now a straight knockout rather than a round robin competition, Walsh’s men have received an automatic semi-final berth where they will face the winner of the preliminary game between Mayo or Leitrim on January 6. The final has been fixed for Sunday, January 20.

Commencing their season in earnest with a National League Division 1 home game against Cavan on the weekend of January 26/27, the Tribesmen will subsequently follow this up with away fixtures against Dublin and Monaghan.

They then have two Connacht derbies in Mayo (away) and Roscommon (home) before concluding the group stages against Tyrone in Round 7. The top two will qualify for the National League final, which takes place at Croke Park in March.

Meanwhile, Galway senior hurlers will return to training next week ahead of the commencement of their Walsh Cup and National League campaigns in January.

Of course, the Tribesmen have already had their first get-together of pre-season when they travelled to Australia to take on Kilkenny in the inaugural Wild Geese trophy exhibition game in Sydney.

The game finished level at Galway 4-23, Kilkenny 3-26 but the Westerners did come home the victors after winning the subsequent free-taking contest 4-3. Encouragingly, Joe Canning, the two Mannions – Padraic and Cathal – and Daithí Burke all lined out in that game for a Galway side absent their club-tied St. Thomas’ contingent.

For more,  read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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