Joyce show stuns Meath

Galway's players celebrate their superb victory

All-Ireland Football Final:
Galway 0-17 0-8 Meath

A remarkable performance from Padraig Joyce helped Galway outclass Meath 0-17 to 0-8 in Sunday's All-Ireland Football Final at Croke Park.

Joyce, after an indifferent first half display, produced astonishing attacking play in the second period to eventually finish with a total of 10 points.

But Joyce was only one of 15 Galway heroes as the Westerners upset the formbook to leave Meath a bedraggled outfit by the final whistle.

The sides were level 0-6 apiece at half-time but that was only because Joyce and his fellow-Galway attackers had missed a succession of great scoring opportunities.

Meath looked bright in the opening five minutes but Galway quickly took control of the exchanges in the middle third of the field to put the Leinster Champions on the backfoot.

Padraig Joyce was man of the match

When Meath did get the ball into Galway territory, they came up against an outstanding half-back line of Declan Meehan, Tomas Mannion and Sean Og de Paor.

The first quarter ended with the teams level at 0-3 each.

Ray Magee opened the scoring for Meath in the first minute but there was never more than a point between the teams in the opening stages.

Joyce missed a great goal chance in the fourth after a long ball had caused confusion in the Meath defence.

The man, who was to go to produce such a devastating second half, squandered several other great opening period opportunities including a couple of straight-forward frees.

Indeed such was Joyce's first half frustrations, that he was booked for a crude foul on Darren Fay in the 28th minute.

But the series of Galway misses only served to show how Meath were struggling in the contest.

Galway's Kieran Fitzgerald battles for possession

A Joyce free in the 32nd minute finally put two points between the teams but Meath somehow battled back against the tide to level by the interval thanks to Magee and Trevor Giles scores.

Joyce's indifferent day seemed to be continuing when he hit a glorious goal chance over the bar moments into the second period after he had sprinted clear of the Meath defence.

But by that stage, Joyce had hit three successive points for Galway and amazingly he went onto hit the Westerners' next six scores as well as they stormed to a 0-13 to 0-8 advantage with 14 minutes remaining.

By now, Meath were down to 14 players after Nigel Nestor's 50th minute sending off.

Nestor received his marching orders after picking up his second yellow card from referee Michael Collins.

Even more crucially, Ollie Murphy had left the field because of injury after dislocating a finger.

Meath were offered a great chance to get back into the contest in the 58th minute when referee Collins adjudged that John McDermott had been fouled in the small parallelogram.

Gary Fahy holds Sam Maguire aloft

It looked a soft enough award but it soon became academic as Trevor Giles dreadfully pulled his shot wide of the right-hand post.

Paul Clancy's immediate point only added to Meath's hurt and the game was effectively over.

The last 10 minutes was a Galway lap of honour with the Westerners holding onto possession much to the cheers of their supporters.

Declan Meehan should have hit the Meath net in the 66th minute but his fisted effort put eight points between the sides.

Dual player Alan Kerins, who had been unfortunate to be dropped for the football decider, was introduced in injury-time and he earned the late free which proved to be the last kick of the match.

Fittingly, man of the match Joyce had the final say to bring up his tally to 10 points.

Meath: C Sullivan; M O'Reilly, D Fay, C Murphy; D Curtis, N Nestor, H Traynor; N Crawford (0-1), J McDermott (0-1); E Kelly (0-1), T Giles (0-1), R Kealy; O Murphy (0-1), G Geraghty, R Magee (0-2). Subs: P Reynolds, J Cullinane (0-1), N Kelly, A Kenny.

Galway: A Keane; K Fitzgerald, G Fahy (capt.), R Fahy; D Meehan (0-1), T Mannion, S de Paor; K Walsh, M Donnellan (0-1); P Clancy (0-2), J Fallon (0-1), J Bergin (0-2); D Savage, P Joyce (0-10), T Joyce. Subs: A Kerins.

Referee: M Collins, Cork