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*Éire Óg’s Jack Joyce kicks a two pointer. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
OVER the past two seasons, Jack Joyce has proved his worth as an impact sub, such was the impression he made in Éire Óg’s semi-final win that he is now pushing as strong as ever for a spot in the first fifteen for Sunday’s Clare SFC final.
In just thirty nine seconds, Jack kicked a brace of two pointers in Éire Óg’s semi-final win over St Joseph’s Miltown. Ironically it was their third round clash against the same opposition that was the only championship tie that he has started this year.
Behind Mark McInerney who is the leading scorer across the entire championship, Joyce is Éire Óg’s second highest scorer this year.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, the twenty five year old commented of his role, “It can be frustrating because there is no guarantee you’re going to play the next game and you’re never getting a full run of games in a row or building on the performances and getting the momentum but that is all part of it, everyone on the panel has a role whether it is coming off the bench, starting and even the lads training every week who are there, pushing the standards and might not even get a game, everyone buying into it and having a role in the team”.
He is hopeful that his appearance off the line a fortnight ago may be enough to push for a spot in the starting team. “Whatever happens in the final happens, I don’t mind either way if it is coming off the bench and making an impact or if I’m in from the start then you have to give it your all, I was lucky the last day that a few balls fell my way and I could hit them, I was happy with the win”.
Though the day won’t be named until later in the week, Jack is generally able to gauge whether or not he is in the reckoning before this. “You would know by training in the few nights before, you would have a fair idea but at the same time you wouldn’t fully know until the team is named on the day. Whether it is a sub or starting as long as you know you’re going to be playing and can make an impact it is enjoyable and you have to do the business when you’re on the field”.
Watching games from the sideline gives players a chance to see the areas to exploit other teams, he outlined. “You’re half looking at it from a fan’s perspective and half from a players perspective, hoping that the lads go on and play well, if there’s a nice lead when you’re coming into a game then there’s no too much pressure but at the same time you’re looking to see where there’s gaps in the other team’s defence or where you can come on and make an impact, half watching as a fan and half seeing where there might be gaps”.
Last year’s county final saw Jack play a starring role, winning the turnover which led to Gavin Cooney’s defining goal while also kicking over a two pointer during his twenty one minutes on the field. It shows the management place a level of trust in him to turn things round. “Everyone on the team has a role, I’m lucky enough to be coming on, you have lads up here training every week who would be dying to come on and they are not but they are training every week and driving the standards, it is hard to be annoyed when you look at some of the players we have like Gavin, Colm, Mark last year, Danny Lyne has been unbelievable this year for us, he’s with Ikem and Mark in the full-forward line so you can’t be too annoyed with some of the lads starting ahead of you but of course everyone wants to start and it would be nice to start but at the same time everyone has a role and that is what wins championships, having that strength in depth”.
His ability to convert two pointers is a particular weapon in his armoury. He told The Clare Echo that his approach is definitely less is more on shooting. “It’s funny, I wouldn’t really practice two pointers or kicking too much, I find sometimes if you’re kicking them all day in training and missing them I feel it can eat away at your confidence if you’re missing them in training whereas if I’m coming off a high and kicking them in matches you go into the next game and you’re still confident, if you miss a few in a game then I might go into training and practice them to get the confidence up, I feel if you’re kicking them well then there’s no point going into training and practicing more, I don’t know if that makes sense”.
A senior associate in corporate tax compliance with PwC, Jack last week finished his secondment to AerCap in Shannon which has resulted in his return to Dublin and a lengthy commute for all things Éire Óg. “I’ve been lucky enough to be sent on secondment to Shannon which has suited me the last few months in terms of the football, it was suiting me for the football but I’m up and down from Dublin again for the football. I got site leave in April so I was doing exams up until June, I fell into Shannon then at the end of June and have been there since then. My secondment at AerCap in Shannon finished on Thursday, I’ll be back up to Dublin then but I’ve a few days where I can work from home, my boss in Dublin is actually an Ennis man Colm Browne who loves the football, he is usually a bit sound and can be a bit flexible that way, hopefully he stays that way. He is living in Ennis, a lot of our time is based in Kilkenny, he commutes from Ennis to Kilkenny a lot and to Dublin, he is the only man in Clare who has more miles put up on a car in the last year or two than me”.
Indeed his boss is Kilrush native Colm Browne, a member of the Banner GAA club and also one of the key personnel responsible for devising Clare GAA’s master fixtures plan. “He loves putting the football weekends on the same weekend as Electric Picnic, he’ll have to change that next year,” observed Jack.
Based in the capital for the past two years, Jack graduated from the University of Galway where he studied global commerce. His four year college stint included a year in Luxemburg for his Erasmus. Commuting can be a challenge, he acknowledged. “It was fine the first year of it, I save the ‘Stick to Football Podcast’ for the commute up and down, it hasn’t been too bad the first year but I know people who have done the same commute and it can catch up on you after two or three years, I’m finding it fine at the moment, with the job itself and the nature of it you get a lot of study leave so it works out and aligns with the football season a bit, I’m home a lot for that so it hasn’t been too bad but I can see how it could catch up on you”.
Part of the Éire Óg senior football panel for four years, he said of their return to the county final, “It’s been a solid year so far, like when you look at the some of the lads we have injured like Gavin (Cooney), Colm (Walsh O’Loghlen), bar the Doonbeg game we’ve looked fairly strong so far and we still have lads like that to come back so it has been a solid year so far”.
Standards are driven by the players, he felt. “We have the same old guard from when I first came in, with the likes of natural leaders like Russ, Fitz, Dean Ryan, definitely in the last few years Ronan Lanigan, Mark, Ikem are always driving standards in training, they are vocal, always pushing you on, you need that with your county lads or whatever driving standards, they have been very good this year”.
A chance to create history on Sunday is not lost on Jack. “It would be nice to be the first team in a while to do a three-in-a-row and the first Éire Óg team to ever do it, we don’t think too much about three-in-a-row though, we’re looking forward to Sunday and winning this year, if it is three-in-a-row it is a bonus, we’ll focus on Kilmurry Ibrickane and try get over the line”.
His father hails from Offaly and his mother is from Kerry, on where the football stems from, he quipped, “With the two counties involved I’d say that one is fairly obvious now, it’s from my mother’s side, I have a few cousins and my grandfather is big into the football”. His grandfather lined out for Laune Rangers while his cousin Cillian Burke joined Geelong in October and will remain with the Aussie Rules side until 2027 at least. “I’d have to get fitter and stronger to ever get a call, it would be a nice lifestyle getting paid to play a bit of football but I’d definitely have to bulk up,” he said of giving Aussie Rules a go.
There’s more to Joyce than gaelic football, he has played soccer for Limerick FC and will be back with Avenue Utd for a second season, winning a Clare Cup in June. “When I was in college I played Collingwood so I played for the college team itself, they had a team in the Galway league so I was playing for them while I was in college, when I finished college I was up in Dublin and came back playing with Avenue Utd, it was my first year back last year and I really enjoyed it, I’m looking forward to going back when the football wraps up. When I was younger I would have been with Avenue, then I went into Limerick FC when I was fifteen, I was there until I was nineteen then COVID hit, I didn’t play soccer for a year or two until I went to college, I would have been more soccer than football growing up”.
On what caused the shift in preference from soccer to gaelic football, he said, “I guess the football is treated a bit more seriously, a lot of my good friends like Mark, Manus, Gavin D’Auria, Niall O’Donoghue were playing the football and weren’t really playing the soccer so a bit of that and I fell into it because all the lads were playing”.
Members of the Éire Óg panel have often joked that they’d be able to build a strong soccer side to challenge for honours in the county. On who would be the side’s best player, he commented, “We were saying if we built an eleven a side Éire Óg team it wouldn’t be a bad team, of course you’d back yourself but Colm Walsh was an unbelievable player, he has played for Ireland, Mark McInerney would like me to put his name in because he was a good striker in Limerick so Mark, Colm and myself if I’m being generous”.
Both sports require a different level of fitness, he flagged. “Even fitness wise over the winter it is good, saying that I don’t know is the fitness between soccer and football is that transferrable, I remember my first soccer game after playing the football and I was gassed, it’s vice versa when I come back playing football, it is a different type of football altogether. It was my first year back with Avenue last year and I really enjoyed it”.
Within the Avenue squad his teammates include Eoghan Thynne and Conor Finnucane who he faces off with in the Clare SFC due to their involvement with St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield and Lissycasey. “It is good to be fair, Tiny loves to bring up the county final last year and I love to slag him back over it, it is good, Conor and Tiny are two sound lads, we wouldn’t hold against them for playing for different GAA teams”.
There is a difference in how an Éire Óg footballer is viewed to an Avenue Utd player, he admitted. “It goes back to your question a while ago on why I picked football over soccer, it is taken a bit more serious in more people going to games, more stuff in the papers from yourself so there is that element”.
A past pupil of Ennis NS and St Flannan’s College, his classmates would have included current teammates Mark McInerney, Manus Doherty, Gavin D’Auria and Niall O’Donoghue. “I’ve been good friends with them ever since I was four or five, it’s mad because our minor team of that age were fairly shit, it is funny how we now have a good few people playing on the senior panel”. McInerney was the smartest of the lot, Joyce confirmed, “Mark is doing a PhD up in Galway curing cancer or so he says, there’s no flies on him, I wouldn’t say it to his face but he was always one of the smartest in the class growing up, him and his twin Alanna”.
There will be “a small bit” of nerves this week leading up to the final, Jack said. “I remember the county final last year coming on and you were a bit nervous especially when we were four points down, it is human nature. There is the excitement aspect too that overwhelms the nerves, right now I’m not too nervous for a week and a half, I’m more looking forward to it than anything, that might change in the days leading up to it”.
