AS HE DEPARTED Parnell Park last night after making his Kilmacud Crokes debut, Shane Walsh must have had a sense of relief that all the fuss about his transfer was finally over.
He did interviews with TG4 and RTÉ cameras on the field after the game, before speaking to members of the written media, before he could finally join his team-mates in the dressing room. By that stage, many of them had togged in, showered and were heading for home.
From now on, Walsh is happy to let his football do the talking.
No sooner had the final whistle sounded on Kilmacud’s clinical dismantling of Templeogue Synge Street, than a crowd of young autograph hunters surrounded the 29-year-old.
Walsh was forced to breakaway from the posse early to join the Kilmacud team in a huddle around manager Robbie Brennan.
The win over Templeogue was a straightforward one. Crokes have bigger fish to fry. A team that went agonisingly close to winning the All-Ireland final earlier this year added one of the classiest forwards in the country to their already formidable ranks.
“Nobody is entitled to a position on a team and you have to earn your place,” said Walsh.
“That is the exact same here, we had the conversation with Robbie and the lads here that there are 15 jerseys there, it’s up to you to push for it, it’s not your jersey. Everybody is in the same situation, the training has been quite intense the last two weeks since I joined.
“The most pleasing thing is that it’s step by step. Everybody is talking about the outside noise that there was an All-Ireland club final there last year and go on and win it this year.
“But all of the lads were saying literally the same things, ‘Let’s go and beat Templeogue.’ That’s the way it is, the group are showing that in training.”
The Galway star had been training on his own until the transfer was officially approved two weeks ago. It was his first game of any description since the All-Ireland final defeat to Kerry.
“Most importantly it’s money in the bank as far as football is concerned because my last game was probably around six weeks ago.
“Just great to get the opportunity to get game-time and hopefully keep progressing during training, because there are a few cobwebs there the last few weeks and the lads probably saw that as well.
“Great to get out and be kicking a ball again, and lovely to say I have played in Parnell Park now as well because that is something I had never done before either.
“The Dubs don’t like to play outside Croke Park sure,” he laughed. “I was slagging Manno (Paul Mannion) on the way in that I never got to play Dublin here. Nice pitch and lovely day for it as well.”
The mouthwatering prospect of Mannion and Walsh playing together in the one forward line finally came to fruition during the second-half.
“It’s lovely and that’s the calibre of player that is here,” said Walsh, “but it’s the same back in Galway as well – in the dressing-room you have different types of personalities like Damien (Comer) and Paul Conroy and these lads as well.
“It is great to get the chance against somebody you were competing against, now you are playing with them so it’s great. ”
Crokes boss Brennan shrugged his shoulders at the criticism the club received after one of the most high-profile switches in GAA history.
“What would we do, turn him away? There is a process, and I’ve said this before, there is a process in Kilmacud and just because you want to join doesn’t mean you get to join.
“There’s plenty of guys who get turned away for different reasons but Shane ticked all the boxes. You’re not going to say no obviously when he wants to come and join you. So just fitting him in now is the challenge for us.
“He spoke at the meeting on Thursday. He speaks brilliantly about the game, he sees it very clearly. He understands it as you’d expect from someone at that level.
“I don’t expect there’s a whole lot of coaching on him, I’d say whatever has been done has been done at this stage, at 29, I don’t think we’ll add a whole lot to his game.
“It’s more just fitting him in to the system and the way we try to play and what we’d like to do. But yeah, he’s a big plus.
“It worked out well being able to get him in. He’s already brilliant around the group, he’s a super guy which is the main thing really to be able to fit in so quickly.
“Ideally we would have liked to have him in earlier and all that kind of stuff but with the run Galway had and all that it just wasn’t possible. A welcome addition for sure.”
What about the perception that if Kilmacud do go one better and land club football’s top prize, they won’t get any credit given the addition of Walsh?
“No matter what you do that’s probably going to be there,” admitted Brennan.
“And like, had we won last year someone said it would have been the greatest whatever because you hadn’t got Paul but I never really bought into that.
“We have a really good squad and the two lads obviously add to that. If we manage to do something with them, brilliant.
“And if we don’t, it will be because of them! That’ll be the reason that we didn’t win,” he smiled.
“So you can’t keep everybody happy. We’ll just look within and make sure we’re doing all the right things.”
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