Kilkenny All-Ireland drought leaves Walter Walsh with pangs of regret
Division Of Cathal Walsh 2024 1 Hurling By Ray Tackled League Allianz Mcmanus/sportsfile Of King Match During Offaly A Walter Kilkenny Is Picture:
There'd have been a neat symmetry to Walter Walsh's hurling career had he quit Kilkenny at the start of 2024, instead of the end.
Back in the middle of January, he scored 1-3 as Tullogher Rosbercon captured the All-Ireland junior hurling title, at the expense of Cork side St Catherine's.
All of his scores came from open play and it was the exact same tally he'd notched on the same Croke Park pitch a dozen years earlier when making what proved to be one of hurling's most remarkable Championship debuts ever.
That was the 2012 All-Ireland final replay against Galway when, in a move that straddled the line between managerial genius and madness, Brian Cody started him for the first time and was bountifully rewarded.
Walsh ended up as the Man of the Match, won two more All-Irelands in 2014 and 2015 and, in hindsight, probably should have bowed out after that victorious return to Croke Park last winter.
Instead, he played on with Kilkenny, ripped a groin muscle clean off the bone midway through the National League, didn't start a county game all year and was restricted to just 90 minutes of hurling across five appearances as a substitute.
"Looking back now, it might have been a nice way to finish if I had retired," agreed Walsh, looking back to January. "I'm still going to be playing with Tullogher anyway. It would have been a nice way to bow out of Croke Park I suppose.
"Actually someone said that to me, the 1-3 similarity. But look, obviously I was delighted to go back and hurl with Kilkenny again. By February I was hungry for it. Unfortunately I picked up the injury but it was still great to put on the black and amber again in 2024, definitely."
Walsh's exit - he was a final quarter sub in the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Clare in July and officially announced his county retirement last weekend - was never likely to match his entrance.
And even with impending surgery on a thumb that has been troubling him for years, his inter-county investment over those dozen years, still yielded a rich dividend overall. The honours list attached to his retirement statement went on and on; three All-Irelands, 8 Leinsters, 4 National Leagues, an All-Star, the club All-Ireland...
A more brutal take on it is that he front loaded his Kilkenny career, winning those three All-Irelands in his first four seasons, and should have won more. It'll be 10 years in 2025 since Kilkenny's last All-Ireland.
"I haven't looked back and just said, 'That's an unbelievable career', patting myself on the back or anything like that," said the powerful forward.
"I'm just thinking about the last couple of years. It would have been great to win another before we finished because the last four All-Irelands I played in, we were defeated in them and you'd be kind of wishing that maybe we'd get another one before you retired.
"But then you have to be extremely grateful to have won three as well. It's so difficult to win an All-Ireland. That's where I'm at now in terms of reflecting on it."
He doesn't really have a whole pile of time right now for reflection anyway. His twins, Charlie and Kate, aren't even a month old. He is a full-time schoolteacher and part-time farmer too. And he's back playing rugby with New Ross.
"I'd played three games in 2018, in the off season," explained the full-back. "It's different. I'd be sore afterwards. I played a match there on Sunday and I have a dead leg. It's a different type of fitness."
The thumb hasn't affected his ability to grip the oval ball, or a sliotar. He's been strapping it to his index finger in games for the last five or six years. Now with Kilkenny out of the picture, he can afford to give it the full 12-week recovery that will be required.
"There's no ligament between my index finger and my thumb, so there's no strength in it whatsoever," he said. "It's just fusing it so it'll be more supported really and it can't kind of bend in the wrong direction. That's the general idea of it."
The inter-county hurling landscape that he has left behind is a curious looking one. Limerick have dominated it for the most part but Clare are now on top. Cork are second favourites behind Limerick for next year's All-Ireland. Holders Clare are third.
There's a gap then to Kilkenny, in fourth place. For the first time ever, no player from a team competing in the Leinster championship made it onto this year's All-Star team, further underlining Munster's provincial hegemony.
"I think it was maybe a freak year that there were no (Leinster) All-Stars," suggested Walsh. "The Leinster final wasn't as entertaining as the Munster final and maybe that led to it as well. I couldn't see that happening again, with no Leinster players on an All-Star team."
An anniversary All-Ireland win for Kilkenny, 10 years after their last one, would undoubtedly change the All-Star picture in 2025.
"I think they're capable," said Walsh of Kilkenny's All-Ireland credentials. "We're not far away. There are some talented players coming up. I'm teaching in Good Counsel College in New Ross and there's talent coming in from Kilkenny there. St Kieran's and Kilkenny CBS, there's talent in the county. Yes, I think they are capable of winning an All-Ireland soon."