ALL-IRELAND SHC FINAL:SOMETIMES IN a game of sustained nervous tension and brute physical force it's difficult for any player to stand out above the rest, although the Kilkenny number five did a pretty good job at it. Wearing the red helmet, looking like he might still be a little underage, Tommy Walsh once again rose to extraordinary heights, and with that personified the unflinching spirit of the Kilkenny defence.
It might ultimately have won them back the All-Ireland. When is the last time Tipperary’s starting forwards only scored three points from play?
Indeed perhaps the biggest fright Walsh gave the Kilkenny supporters all afternoon was when finishing the pre-match parade, and immediately before the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann, he darted towards the tunnel under the Hogan Stand, like a man trying to escape the scene of a crime. Was the famous hurler from Tullaroan suffering from some uncontrollable form of stage fright, or worse still, suddenly fearing the prospect of having to handle the Tipperary forwards? Impossible, no?
When he reappeared about 60 seconds later, rejoining his team-mates for the final verse of Amhrán na bhFiann, it was obvious he needed to release one last bit of pressure – on his bladder, that is – before delivering what must rank as one of his finest All-Ireland final performances – he now has seven winning medals, and he’s still only 28.
“Sure I drank about two litres of water in about half an hour before,” he told us later, ambling out of the Kilkenny dressingroom with three hurls neatly tied together “I don’t normally do that. I just said I’d have to go. Because there was no point in doing it during the match.”
By that we assumed he meant no point in running for the tunnel during the match, not something else. Anyway, over the next 70 minutes, Walsh caught balls he’d no right to, chased and won balls well out of range, and foraged for possession every chance he got.
Of course he also hit everything and everyone that moved – including, purely accidentally, match referee Brian Gavin.
“Was that me, it was?” he says, when asked if he’d even realised he’d cut Gavin on the nose. “Ah, sure there were a lot of old hurls going around, and everyone gives as good as he gets. Sure Brian Galvin is a good Offaly hurling man, and as hardy as anyone, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that at all. He’d be delighted, I’d say.”
What is certain is Walsh was back to his fiery best after a season that started late due the recurrence of a shoulder injury. He’d missed most of the league, and like every other Kilkenny player had to earn, or rather fight, for his place back. Maybe because of that or maybe because the older you get the more you appreciate success, but Walsh rated All-Ireland win number seven the sweetest of his lot.
“It’s our sweetest victory,” he says, before promptly adding, “so far!” – and the scary thing is this victory appears to have whetted Kilkenny’s appetite again, not just satisfied it. “Because of the hurt last year, I suppose. We gave it everything last year to win the five in a row, but were beaten by a better team on the day. People were saying we were outfought on the day, but I just think we were out-hurled on the day. So to come back this year, and prove we could win it, is such an absolute relief, and joy. Really, coming up here today we didn’t know what was going to happen, to win it in the end is just an absolute joy.”
It was obvious from the throw-in – and from some of Walsh’s brilliant high catches in the opening 15 minutes, that Kilkenny had brought their A-game, and Tipperary we’re going to struggle. That, says Walsh, was always their intention.
“We’d talked about tackling hard, from the start. But no different from that Tipperary would have been saying in their dressing-room. You go out to play at your absolute maximum. We did that today. Maybe got the few lucky breaks as well. But if that was tomorrow it could be a different story again. We’ve seen that throughout the summer. Some days it works for you and some days it doesn’t. But we didn’t give their forwards as much space as last year.
“Every day you go out you just hope you’ll do the right things, and the ball will come your way. Sometimes you work twice as hard and things don’t go your way. Thank God from a Kilkenny perspective things did go our way today. The ball seemed to drop our way, for all our players, and even our goals seemed to drop our way. Last year Tipperary got them drops. Today there were ours, and that was the difference. I said it before that would we could go out and play Tipperary tomorrow and they could win by four points. There’s that little between the teams. Today we just got it right.”
And in the physical battle, no one got it more right than Walsh.
“Well I don’t know about that,” he says, with typical modesty. “When you’re out there you’re getting as many belts and as many shoulders as you’re giving. Hurling has turned into a very physical game. It’s no longer good enough for forwards just to be scoring all the time. Now they have to be tackling every bit as hard as the backs.”
But on All-Ireland final day, no one tackles harder than Tommy Walsh.
