It would be difficult to find a more perfect embodiment of the Galway footballing blueblood tradition than Pádraic Joyce.
His career reads like a how-to manual in becoming a Galway football icon, as scripted by one of the 20th century elders in St Jarlath's.
Become a star player on a Jarlath's Hogan Cup winning team, win a bunch of Connacht titles, win your couple of All-Irelands, get Man of the Match in one of the finals, hug Sean Purcell in the dressing room afterwards.
Add in four county titles with Killererin - needless to say, Joyce was the chief orchestrator on the field for all of these - and now a stint as manager, where he's led the county to the cusp of glory.
Born in the village of Bearna Dhearg, just south of Tuam, also birthplace to a certain Sunday Game presenter of 35 years standing, Joyce's family home was occasionally a stop-off for Galway football legends from the black and white era.
"My father, God rest him, didn't really play much football but my uncle Billy would have played at lot. You'd always kind of be steeped in that kind of stuff.
"When we made our communion, we put our money towards a pool table in the house - something really worthwhile!
"Billy could land in there any time of the day with God knows who. I remember one particular night he came in with Mattie McDonagh.
"Me and Tommy (brother) and Billy and Mattie were playing doubles in pool all night and just talking football.
"I've always been in that football environment. Football has been a huge part of my life."
The peak years of Joyce's inter-county career were the early ones. He was marginally the top scorer in a thrilling ensemble forward line in 1998.
Watching Match of the Day in the Berkeley Court Hotel on the eve of the final, his roommate Michael Donnellan, through a mouthful of sandwich, told Joyce he'd round the keeper in a manner akin to Alan Shearer that weekend. It took him until the first few minutes after half-time to fulfil the prophecy as Galway blew Kildare away.
Three years later, he kicked 0-10 in a surreal second-half demolition of Meath, as Galway became the first back-door All-Ireland champions.
Joyce stayed around longer than any of his '98-01 teammates, latterly slipping into the role of elegant, tall-socked playmaker on the '40, but Galway steadily dropped off the pace, eventually to the point where the leading contenders were only specks in the distance.
"I probably played... some might say too long. But I played on a good bit. You're watching your team-mates, your good friends, retiring year after year. I just felt like I was still able to give something.
"But I was part of teams that lost a lot of championship matches by a point. Wexford beat us one year. Westmeath beat us. Not saying anything about those teams but we lost a lot of games by a point here, a point there.
"Obviously when I retired, I said I'd like to go into management at some stage. I got involved with my club in underage management. But then the opportunity came up in '19 to take over the (Galway) 20s, which I jumped at.
"As luck would have it, Kevin was finished the following year. There wasn't a huge queue for the Galway senior football management in 2020 bar myself and the late Liam Kearns. We had plenty of conversations, the two of us, in the corridors, which was great.
"The county board probably had no option but to give it to the local lad, more so than anything else."
His uncle Billy Joyce played for Galway during their nearly-men phase in the 1970s and early 80s. He lost three All-Ireland finals in four years in 1971, 1973 and 1974 and then came on as a veteran sub in the infamous 1983 decider.
The dreadful optics of the '83 defeat - losing with two extra men, etc - were so traumatic for Galway football that they ceased to be even nearly men for a long while after.
Nonetheless, he retained that Joyce confidence. "In my day, beating Mayo was like going to Mass," Billy told the Irish Examiner last year, a rather more bullish sentiment than the one subsequently put out there by the Saw Doctors.
That one meant a lot to Padraic Joyce - Galway secure three in a row in Connacht for the first time since 1984 #GAA pic.twitter.com/IiluJCVADZ
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) May 5, 2024
His nephew inherits that confidence, as well as a sense of tribal oneupmanship regarding their Connacht rivals. At an admittedly boozy Des Cahill-anchored panel discussion somewhere in the West three years go, one Mayo fan took the opportunity afforded by the roving mic to mock Joyce's managerial record after two provincial final losses. "If I was born in Mayo," Joyce snapped back, from the top of the room, "ye'd have f****n' five All-Irelands!"
After an injury-hit spring and a shaky semi-final performance in Sligo, it was the dramatic one-point win over their oldest rivals in the Connacht decider that ignited their season.
During the game in Markievicz, with Shane Walsh still feeling his way back to full-match fitness and with Damien Comer being sprung earlier than they would have intended, Galway's season looked in danger of coming apart at the seams.
"We were in bother that day," Joyce told RTÉ Sport's Marty Morrissey this week. "Sligo started the game really, really well. We just couldn't get to the pitch of it at all that day.
"I remember with five or six minutes to go, I looked over at one of my selectors, I won't say who, and he said, 'we're gone, we're gone...'
"Down the stretch against Mayo was probably the moment of the year that turned this group around. We were two points down and time was nearly up. Seán Kelly dispossessed Matthew Ruane, a huge turnover and we got a score off that.
"Then obviously we were level and our lads decided, in their own mind not on anyone else's (on the line), to push up on the kickout. Normally teams would sit back and wait for extra-time.
"There's questions over the free we were given but sometimes if you're brave, you'll get the rewards. It was a fabulous kick by Connor Gleeson to land the Connacht title for us and probably answer a lot of critics he has.
"We probably over-celebrated again too much! But again, I'm not worried about that. You have to enjoy the moments.
"The momentum we got off that. Even that night when the match was over, we went down to a friend of mine, Tríona's place in Bonham Quay. We had the whole family and players on a rooftop building in Galway. It was magic. And I think that night, the conversation was, 'yeah, we can go away now and do something.'"
With the late John O'Mahony having famously guided Galway to the All-Ireland victories of 1998 and 2001, Joyce this weekend has the chance to become the first Galway man to manage a team to an All-Ireland senior football title - at least since the cult of the manager arrived in GAA with Kevin Heffernan in 1974.
Ballinasloe's John 'Tull' Dunne, winner of two All-Irelands in the '30s, is the patriarchical figure most commonly associated with overseeing the three-in-a-row team in the 60s, though the term 'manager' wasn't in vogue. (Even the Irish soccer team hadn't bought into the cult of the manager at that time).
O'Mahony's death earlier this month at the age of 71 had people again re-visiting 'A Year Til' Sunday' and, according to Joyce, dominated the Galway '98-01 whatsapp group for days after. The timing of his passing was somewhat reminscent to the death of Tony Keady in the lead-up to the Galway hurlers' All-Ireland victory of 2017.
For Joyce, O'Mahony, a hugely advanced manager in the 1990s and early 2000s, is one of his biggest influences.
"He shaped us as individuals as well. I've a huge thing about timekeeping and he probably instilled that in me. If I'm meeting someone at 11 o'clock, you're there for 11 o'clock.
"He was very methodical and organised. Ahead of his time. He'd have a training plan given out to players a month in advance. I'd give it to players the exact same way.
"When you'd suffer the defeats and there's always a little bit of noise out there, you'd always get a phone call from him saying 'these things happen.'
"He'd actually enjoy this final if he was around. Because his son-in-law is actually Padraig McKeever who's involved in sponsoring the Armagh as well. So, he can't lose."
Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship final, Armagh v Galway, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
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