Kieran Joyce insists Kilkenny's backs will learn from the concession of four goals to Offaly.

The Cats rearguard was all at sea at times on Sunday but Joyce - though disappointed - is confident they can plug the gaps that appeared in O'Connor Park:

"It happens in most games," the Black & Amber No.7 comments in The Irish Daily Mirror. "They were genuine mistakes and we'll learn from it.

"We'll go back and we'll talk about it. We'll take a few lessons from it.

"It's all a learning curve and it's the first championship game of the year. As long as we got the win, that's all that matters.

"Backs don't want to concede goals and all the backs were disappointed after conceding the goals but, look, we're happy with the win.

"We always knew it was going to be tough coming up to Tullamore. It was a funny game at the start - a ball off the post and they got a goal.

"They kicked on from that and they got a couple of scores and we found it hard to settle down but Eoin Larkin is very good at frees and we were very happy going in at half time one point behind.

"We knew then we had to push on in the second half." Tweet

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