"Because of all that, the atmosphere’s been positive all along, we didn’t need a win to improve things in that regard.

“What was good about the win was it showed you’ll get the results if you work hard — if you commit 100% to what we’re doing, that it’ll work out. In that sense it was a boost, because it proves to you that what you’re doing, what Pat is doing as a coach, that those are the right things.

“Of course it’s good to win a game — we go out to win every game and we try our best to win every time. We need to keep working hard and to have faith in the process, in the game plan we’re trying to build, and all of that — the hard work, the wins — builds confidence.”

Ryan isn’t the only change, with manager Kieran Kingston importing over a dozen U21s to the senior panel. Joyce says they’re fully integrated.

“Pat’s different to what we had, so to an extent you have to get used to a different voice, but that wasn’t much of an issue, to be honest.

“We have a lot of different players who’ve come in, younger players, but age isn’t something we mention — if you’re good enough to wear the Cork jersey then you’re old enough, that’s the attitude within the group.

"All the younger lads have stepped up and that’s only increased the strength of the team. Everybody’s looking over their shoulder and trying to play as well as they can, because they know what’ll happen if they don’t, the panel is getting stronger and stronger all the time.

"There’s nothing ever mentioned in training about age, or younger and older players, anything like that.

“We’re the Cork senior hurling team and you’re there because you’re good enough. There’s one team there and we’re all driving on in the same direction.”

Joyce himself returned to the Cork defence 12 months ago after lengthy rehabilitation of a cruciate injury.

Ancient history now, he says: “It’s not on my radar at all, but to be honest it wasn’t even on my radar last year when I came back first.

“I did my work, did everything, so the injury was parked, totally. If you even had it at the back of your mind you wouldn’t be right, but my attitude is to go as hard as I can for as long as I can. If something happens, it happens, I can’t do anything about that, I’ll just go as hard as I can.”

He’ll need to go hard against Tipperary on Sunday.

“They’re the All-Ireland champions. They’re the benchmark, they’re coming to Cork to try to beat us and they’ll be hot favourites. But you have to play the best teams, the best players, and that’ll only stand to our team, playing against a good side like Tipperary.

"We want to put ourselves up against them, and we’re going to work hard, stick to our process and try to keep improving. We’ll see what happens with that.”

Qualification for the quarter-finals and relegation are possibilities for almost every team in Division 1A but Joyce and company aren’t getting distracted: “To us the most important game of the year is Tipp on Sunday. We’re not looking beyond that for a second.

“The game after that will be the most important game of the year, just as the Waterford match a couple of weeks ago was the most important game of the year when we were preparing for it. It’s one game at a time as it’s been all year for us.”