JOYCE'S RUTHLESS EDGE IS SHAPING GALWAY

NO-ONE is safe and reputations count for very little in the inner circle of Padraic Joyce's Galway school of hard knocks.

- By KARL O'KANE

From the outside, it appears a cut-throat environment where you underperform at your peril.

If there were big egos there, they've long since been bruised or downsized and if anyone believed they were indispensable, they were wrong.

There's a hard-nosed feel, a refusal to be beaten in their performances reflected in how they continue to be managed.

Maybe it's a symptom of being on the road for so long - this is Joyce's sixth season - and heart-breaking All-Ireland final defeats in 2022 and 2024.

It looks like they won't stop at anything to get over the line - and if there are casualties along the way, then so be it.

There already have been.

From Footballers of the Year to generational forward talents to first choice goal-keepers, Joyce and his management team have dropped or pulled them all - and more.

It almost feels like the Galway players are getting used to it.

Shane Walsh - one of those to get the curly finger and bit of a tongue-lashing earlier this year - shrugged it off last week, saying: 'We could nearly be laughing and joking about some of the things he'd (Joyce) say about us in the media'.