Joyce embracing 'different ballgame' after switch to full-back

Prior to Sunday’s Munster SHC win over Tipperary, 22 of Ciarán Joyce’s 23 championship starts for Cork had come in the half-back line.

The exception had been the 2024 All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final against Offaly, when the Castlemartyr man lined out at midfield.

It was against Offaly in this year’s league that the first steps in the latest part of his positional journey started as he featured at full-back. One league final against Limerick later and he was in the number 3 for Sunday’s repeat of last year’s All-Ireland final.

It was a winning start for Cork and a strong performance from Joyce, though he acknowledges the heavy adjustment.

“Oh, it's a huge difference,” he says, “it's a different ballgame completely.

“You're constantly concentrating on your men the whole time and you can't lose concentration for one second, because the full-forward line, for Tipp and for every team, they're very good.

“So if you lose your concentration, they'll turn you and score. I'm still getting used to it.”

The six-point defeat in the league decider had raised some questions about Cork.

Sunday was proof of the difference between league and championship, though Joyce feels they were able to take valuable education from the loss to Limerick.

“I suppose we learned an awful lot in that league final,” he says.

“There was a lot of...I suppose when you lose, you nearly learn more. Against Limerick, we learned, especially our own puckouts and working the ball out, there were two things we learned a lot on.”

Cork’s 0-29 to 1-22 victory in Thurles owed much to a third-quarter surge, with the teams having been level at half-time.

“We knew there was definitely more in us,” Joyce says.

“Going in at halftime, 13-all, we felt we were yet to catch fire – in training the last couple of weeks, we've been going well.

“We were just kind of waiting for things to happen, really, in the first half but, thankfully, for that 20 minutes in the second half, the ball was getting zipped around more, and I suppose we played better hurling.”

And now they will look to bring that momentum with them for the visit of Limerick.

“It's a quick turnaround,” Joyce says, “but, look, we’re used to it, we're at it a couple of years now, so we can't wait for it.”