Ciarán Joyce and Cork ready to take the learnings from 2024 as new season comes into view

While it seems like longer, this year was just Ciarán Joyce’s third on the Cork senior hurling panel.

Despite missing two matches in the Munster SHC, the Castlemartyr man ended it with an All-Star nomination, playing a key role as Cork beat Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final and only lost the final to Clare by a point after extra time.

Currently, Joyce and the rest of the panel and management are in Miami on the team holiday. The focus will quickly turn to 2025 - Cork's first outing is a challenge match against Waterford on January 4 in aid of Brian Greene and Waterford Hospice - but the opportunity to catch up first is welcomed.

“It was literally, the final was on the Sunday and there was a couple of days together and that was it,” he says.

“I haven’t seen a lot of the lads in a while so the holiday will be the first time to see a few of them, it’ll be great to see them again.

“It is kind of weird, because we’re so used to being in each other’s proximity, four or five nights a week, and all of a sudden then you’re gone from each other.”

Going straight into club and division action was cathartic - and successful, as Joyce won the Co-op SuperStores Premier SHC with Imokilly and helped Castlemartyr to win the Imokilly JAFC.

“I nearly liked that it was a two-week turnaround,” Joyce says, “going straight back into it.

“Straightaway, you’re just concentrating on your next match with Castlemartyr and you’re forgetting about the Clare game, which is good in a way.

“It was a month later that Castlemartyr were playing, you’d be dwelling on the defeat all month. It made us get over it a bit quicker, I thought.”

While there might still be a lingering sense of what-if, especially given that Robbie O’Flynn was fouled as he attempted a late equaliser, overall Joyce is keen to channel any disappointment into fuel for the coming campaign.

“Obviously, everybody’s talking about the Robbie O’Flynn, incident,” he says, “but, to be honest, if that happened in the first few minutes of the game, no-one would have been talking about it.

“That’s the way hurling goes, that’s the way every sport goes, there’s the small margins. On the day, I suppose you could say that Clare were the better team and we can’t have any complaints.

“We’ll use it as motivation for next year too as well, that’s the other way of looking at it.

“We took a lot of learnings from that match, particularly, and the semi-final – even all year, we took a lot of learnings, so we’ll definitely use them for next year as well.”

Surviving in senior inter-county hurling is a case of constant learning. Having anchored the Cork defence for two All-Ireland U20 wins under Pat Ryan, Joyce bucked the modern trend in settling straight in at senior level.

“When I was first called in, I was like, ‘If I make the matchday panel, I’ll be happy,’” he says.

“I remember thinking that to myself and when I started training and playing a few matches then, I was making my way up and up.

“Then I was in the starting 15 and I was thinking, ‘I might actually be in with a shout here.’ I just worked my way from there, I took it training by training, match by match and luckily I found my way into the starting 15 that year.

“We’ve come a long way since – it’s mad to think that that was three years ago now, time is flying by.”

Were there any ‘welcome to senior hurling’ moments?

“I remember the first few weeks in training, the physicality was unbelievable,” Joyce says.

“I actually did damage to my shoulder – Alan Cadogan gave me a shoulder in training, I’ll never forget it.

“It was a real wake-up call, those first few weeks, but I think your body gets used to it after a while.

“Those first two or three months are rough but you adapt to it.”

And yet, in such a short space of time, Joyce became an integral part of the side. When news of a hamstring injury broke before the Munster SHC game against Limerick in May, it reduced hope among a Cork support that was already down in the mouth after losses to Waterford and Clare.

Of course, Cork won an epic game that night and, having been kept in reserve for the win over Tipperary as he recovered, Joyce feared for his place.

“Yeah, certainly, the competition inside in the team is very good,” he says.

“For the Offaly and Dublin games, I got a start. You’re on your toes the whole time with the Cork panel, there’s nearly two players in every position and you constantly have to be ready. You can’t get any bit complacent.

“When I left, Rob [Downey] played a great role at centre-back. In the Offaly game, I played midfield and then, before the Dublin game, Rob got sick so I went in centre-back.

“To be honest, I don’t mind playing anywhere, whether it’s half-back or midfield. As long as I’m in the starting 15, that’s all I want.”

Certainly, he will be in the starting 15 for MTU Cork in the Fitzgibbon Cup, which starts in January and proceeds in tandem with the opening shots of the national. The agricultural science student is quietly confident that they can spring an upset or two.

“To be honest, with MTU this year I think we’ve a very good team,” he says.

“You’ve the likes of Alan Connolly, ‘Dudsy’ [Diarmuid] Healy, Mikey Finn, we’ve Seán Walsh from Waterford as well.

“This year, I think we’re more than good enough to actually go far in it. I know that we are up against it compared to the picks of other colleges, but that’s a good factor to have too, you’re going in as underdogs every day you go out.

“I kind of like going in as underdogs; you’ve nothing to lose.”

And, while Cork won’t exactly be underdogs after such a good showing in 2024, he is equally optimistic that the graph can keep pointing upward.

“Definitely,” Joyce says, “we can take some amount of learnings from this year and there are young fellas coming through. I think there’s a good blend there, us young fellas take a lot of learnings from the older fellas. They’ve been there a very long time, the likes of Séamie [Séamus Harnedy] and Hoggie [Patrick Horgan] to name just a few.

“We can take a lot of learnings from this year, especially after the first two games, that’s where we really kick-started our year. We hopefully want to take that momentum into next year now.

“There’s a good team there, hopefully we’ll have another few days ahead of us. There’s no point dwelling on things – what happened happened.

“Hopefully, there’s a good future ahead for us.”