Padraic Joyce delighted for Shane Walsh to have his moment versus Armagh after ‘unfair criticism'
GALWAY boss Pádraic Joyce thanked hero Shane Walsh for saving their summer last night.
The Tribes were staring at a shock Championship exit against Armagh - but Walsh nailed a last-gasp free to
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Joyce's charges pipped Armagh 2-22 to 0-27
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Walsh celebrates after kicking his long-range winner
Galway fell nine points behind in Cavan and missed two penalties before staging a stunning recovery.
Joyce said: 'It was a super kick by Shane, a pressure kick by Shane.
'He gets unfair criticism half the time in Galway about stuff, but he was fantastic today.
'He's trained really well for the last couple of weeks and put in a super performance today.'
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Galway looked doomed when they fell nine points behind in their All-Ireland final rematch with Kieran McGeeney's men.
Matthew Tierney and Rob Finnerty both missed penalties, but a brilliant second-half effort saw them run out 2-22 to 0-27 winners thanks to Walsh's decisive score after the buzzer.
The Connacht champions racked up 2-15 in the second half, as Walsh fired 0-9 and Rob Finnerty and John Maher both hit the net.
Armagh were already through as top dogs and Joyce was delighted to snatch third spot in the group of death and a place in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final draw tomorrow morning.
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He said: 'We were fighting for our lives really. We knew we were going to go out of the Championship.
'But we took the shackles off and for some reason it took that to start playing a bit of football and we kicked 2-15 in the second half which was huge kicking.
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'We controlled the game. At the end there we could have probably lost it. Cein D'Arcy had a kick out at the end and Paul Conroy used all his experience to win the free for Shane.
'They're hard kicks, the ones right in front of the goal, a bit of an angle, probably about three or four yards to the right of the post but a super kick.
'He was kicking well all day, Shane in fairness to him. The objective was to get out of the group, try and get out in as high a position as you can.
'But the way the last two weeks went for us, we'd happily settled for third, to win the game tonight and we did so.
'Look, we're happy to just get out of it but we'll just settle down in the morning, we'll get a recovery session tomorrow and we can go out again next week and get ready for the draw.'
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