Joseph Cooney (born 17 March 1965) is an Irish former hurler who played as a centre-forward at senior level for the Galway county team.
[1] Born in Bullaun, County Galway, Cooney first played competitive hurling during his schooling at St Raphael's College.
He arrived on the inter-county scene at the age of seventeen when he first linked up with the Galway minor team, before later joining the under-21 side.
As a member of the Connacht inter-provincial team on a number of occasions, Cooney won four Railway Cup medal.
[2] During his playing days, Cooney won five All-Star awards in six seasons as well as being named Texaco Hurler of the Year in 1987.
[4] In May 2020, the Irish Independent named Cooney at number eleven in its "Top 20 hurlers in Ireland over the past 50 years".
The game was very close for much of the hour, however, with five minutes to go Cooney sent a long-range free into the net to secure an All-Ireland club medal for himself.
Sarsfields retained their county and provincial club titles in 1993 and Cooney later lined out in his second consecutive All-Ireland final.
He won an All-Ireland medal in this grade in 1983 after Galway defeated a Dublin team that contained a young Niall Quinn.
In spite of losing the championship decider for a second year in-a-row, Cooney's performance still earned him a second All-Star award.
After a low-scoring game against Kilkenny Galway finally triumphed on a score line of 1–12 to 0-9 and Cooney collected his first senior All-Ireland medal.
In 1989 Cooney won a second National League title and Galway looked a good bet to win a third championship in-a-row.
The great Galway team of the 1980s was now after being broken up, however, Cooney continued playing and captured a third National League medal in 1996.
Joseph has also won an all-Ireland vocational school title with St. Brigids of Loughrea and is currently a member of the Galway senior panel.