GALWAY BOSS PÁDRAIC Joyce has confirmed that defender Kieran Molloy has been hit with a torn cruciate that will rule him out for ‘nine to ten months’ and that Liam Silke, another key back, will be based in New Zealand until at least next April.
Molloy suffered the injury in a club game for Corofin against Tuam Stars at the end of last month in the group stages of the Galway senior football championship.
Joyce was speaking to Colm Parkinson today on the Smaller Fish GAA podcast and expressed his devastation for Molloy.
“He has his cruciate (torn), the poor man. I’m devastated for him because he’s a great lad, real down to earth, country type fella. Came in this year for us, played every game for us. Real good character, he’s great craic, a great guy to have around the dressing-room. One of these fellas, you could bring him to war with you, he won’t let you down. They’re hard to get. Personally for him, I’d be really upset for him.
“I was at the match. I knew the way he fell on the knee, because he went down waving the hand, I knew he was in trouble. Not like him to get injured. Unfortunately he’s going to be gone for nine to ten months. But look it, he’s a window, a hope he might come back next June, but it’s tough on him.”
Joyce had spoken after the All-Ireland final loss to Kerry about Silke’s move to New Zealand to work as a doctor and has provided more clarity on his 2023 plans.
“Liam is a man of very few words but he’s a very smart, intelligent fella. Had fantastic year for us and he’s taking his chance to go away. He’s been in college the last couple of years, he’s qualified actually in physiotherapy, qualified now as a doctor. He’s done his doctorship here in Ireland but he’s got a five-month stint in New Zealand. He’s that until, maybe April time, so we’ll see from there.”
“Some lads go home and some lads go to places that shouldn’t be going to for the rest of the night and that’s ok too”
— Smaller Fish GAA (@SmallerFishGAA) October 14, 2022
Padraic Joyce on what Galway did after that ET win over Armagh with a semi final in two weeks
PS, love The Tia Maria part 🤣
Full show https://t.co/mVc5dkBdms pic.twitter.com/RqzaMjlAje
Joyce was also asked about some of the players not involved in his squad this year like Mountbellew-Moylough’s Michael Daly and Maigh Cuilinn player Peter Cooke.
“There’s loads of fellas. Mike Daly is not back with the club, he’s had a knee operation last year, I don’t think it’s gone as well as it should go. Peter (Cooke) is back from America, I haven’t spoke to him but he’s concentrating on the club, we’ll chat to him when the club is over to see what his intentions are. He’s in America work wise, he’s back and over, he’s a great lad and he just couldn’t commit this year to us. When he commits, he commits.”
The Galway defender Sean Mulkerrin suffered a horrific knee injury earlier this year in a Sigerson Cup game and his inter-county boss is determined not to rush him back to action next season.
“Sean had a desperate nasty injury, a cracked kneecap, an awful injury he got. He was actually in for another little bit of a surgery there lately. He’s had a little of discomfort in the knee. He should be back but again I’ve never had a cracked kneecap. Our medical team have seen very few of them, so we don’t know how he’s going to react and get back.
“Next year’s season is going to maintain 16, 17 games if you’re going to win the All-Ireland, maybe 18. Is a player like that going to feature in every game? Probably not, so we’re going to mind him, make sure he gets back. The big thing for Sean is he makes a full recovery now. I certainly won’t be rushing him back in unless he’s perfect.”
Joyce was also asked about the Galway future of 2018 All-Star winning forward Ian Burke, another member of Corofin’s triumphant club teams.
“We had him 2020, didn’t come in the year after that and we didn’t have him this year. He’s back with the club this year and played really well for the club at the weekend, they lost out to Mountbellew, but he did play really well, showed some good signs, so we’ll have a think about that one.”
After being at the helm of Galway for the last three seasons, it was announced last week that Joyce was set to take on another three-year term in charge.
“(An easy decision) to a degree yeah, also a difficult one as well to try and commit to that length of time with Galway. Obviously there is a thing there where you feel there is kind of work to be done that you didn’t finish a job. We still failed at the end of the year while last year was a good year for us. There’s a commitment from the group there to go at it again, so that was easy to make up my mind.
“The county board in fairness, we chatted that for a good while. It was important to get the couple of years because if put a year in, like you’re putting serious pressure on yourselves and the players, there’s no guarantee. I think three teams have ever lost a final and came back and won it the following year in the last 20 years as far as I know. It was important to get the continuity there and get a job finished that we started a couple of years ago.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Joyce spoke about the importance of the quarter-final win over Armagh as a milestone in the squad’s development, the key role sub goalkeeper James Keane played in the dressing-room of that game, his views on penalty shootouts, Galway’s foot-passing style, drink bans at inter-county level and the pain of losing the final to Kerry.
