It’s easy to come home to a champions’ welcome; it’s a nightmare to have to face your legion of fans when you lose – but the Galway footballers fronted up and took to the podium in both Tuam and Pearse Stadium. And their loyal fans had the same welcome for them as if they were parading the Sam Maguire.

The heartbreak was all too evident on their faces and Pádraic Joyce – a warrior who never gave less than his all for the county – admitted that the defeat had been hard to take.

“There is nobody as heartbroken as I am. Words can’t describe how much these people mean to me. We’ve been on such a journey for five years, took us a long time to get here, and now we’ve lost two finals in three years which is heartbreaking,” he told the fans.

Someone who understood that better than most was the ageless Liam Sammon, an All-Ireland winner in 1966 who suffered final defeats in 1971, 1973 and 1974.

He’d managed Galway when PJ was a player – and the embrace they shared in Pearse Stadium was both testimony to their mutual respect, and an acknowledgement of what it feels like to come back as runners-up.

Indeed a host of former Galway stars of both codes turned out to welcome the footballers home – including many of PJ’s former All-Ireland-winning team-mates like Declan and Michael Meehan, Michael Donnellan, Joe Bergin and Seán Armstrong, along with All-Ireland-winning hurlers John Connolly and Seán Silke.

Caption: Galway Manager Pádraic Joyce meeting with Liam Sammon, former Galway football player and manager, during the homecoming at Pearse Stadium on Monday evening.

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