Joyce: 'The toughest challenge awaits'
Galway manager Stephen Joyce following the Conancht Minor title win in July.
By Cian O'Connell
Throughout the past four decades Stephen Joyce has been a loyal servant to the Galway football cause.
Whether with the royal blue and white shirt of Clonbur or the maroon and white of Galway, Joyce played for and then prepared teams with admirable determination.
On Sunday Galway face a demanding encounter against three in a row chasing Kerry, who have impressed throughout the 2016 Electric Ireland Minor Championship. “The toughest challenge awaits, but I suppose that is always the case going into a final,” Joyce admitted to GAA.ie.
“Kerry are obviously going for three in a row so there must be something in the Kerry water down there. They are a very strong and skillful team and over the past number of years they seem to have put huge work into their underage teams.”
How Galway adequately dealt with Donegal, though, at the penultimate stage with inside forwards Dessie Conneely and Robert Finnerty impressing, encouraged Joyce. “That worked out well for us on the day, as I said before the match we were going into the unknown in many ways, but the lads worked very hard,” Joyce reflected.
“I suppose the game plan that we had for that match worked and it enabled us to do what we wanted to do.
“Kerry will have a more orthodox style of play, they will go for a lot of kick passing so it will be a totally different game.
“The lads will just have to adapt and we will have to make sure that we get our own level of performance too.
“They are a fine team, a very skillful team. A good few of them won the Hogan Cup too so that is another sign of how strong underage football currently is in Kerry too.
“We are in an All Ireland final, we know that we have lots of good players and we want to win the match. It will be a difficult challenge, but we are looking forward to it now.”
