Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh is looking forward to testing his Waterford side against “probably the best team in the land”.
Na Deise are looking for a first win of the NHL campaign after an eight-point loss away to Cork in round one, and they couldn’t have been handed a tougher task than a visit by Brian Cody’s men.
“Look, Kilkenny are the All-Ireland champions. They’re a super team and they’re probably the best team that has ever played,” Walsh said on www.gaa.ie.
“It’s not going to be an easy task for us but on the other side it’s going to be a great test to see where we’re at and what we have to do because like anyone you want to test yourself against the best and that’s what we’ll be doing on Sunday.”
Walsh was moved from his usual centre-back slot to the half-forward line in his side’s tepid loss to Cork but he believes the return of so many college players is key to an upturn in fortunes.
“It was disappointing,” Brick said of the defeat at Pairc Ui Rinn. “But Cork were much the better team. We have to come up an awful lot in the next few weeks and I suppose Sunday’s going to be a big test.”
“We were missing a lot of colleges players for that game. Between lads playing Freshers and Fitzgibbon we were missing 12 or 13 from the panel. It’s hard to train well as a county team and get a good group together when you’re missing that number of lads.
“But they’re back now and we’ve been working hard in the last few weeks and getting back down to normal training and getting the group used to each other again. It’ll take time and we’ll be working on it throughout the League.”
Waterford won the Munster minor hurling championship in 2011 and though they lost the semi-final to Dublin, Walsh is energised by the injection of talent in the county panel.
“The fact that we have so many colleges fellas is great and underage hurling in Waterford in my eyes has never been as strong,” he said.
“We will have plenty of new faces. Darragh Fives and Paudie Mahony made a huge impact out of minor last year and hopefully we’ll pick up a few more this year.”
Walsh was happy to line out at centre-forward against Cork but a man who has often been at his side in the half-back line looks set to continue a championship career that began way back in 1992.
“Tony Browne’s a great man around the panel and he’s a great man on the team,” Walsh said.
“You don’t see anyone past 35 playing club at the moment. Tony is 39 in July this year. He’s a great man and that’s it.”
“What he has done in the modern era, I can’t see it being done again.”