LEADER OF THE TRIBE
Walsh’s form teases a winter packed with promise for Galway
THE numbers Shane Walsh posted last Friday evening will have left Galway football supporters feeling reassured, perhaps even giddy.
Walsh unleashed all of his potent powers on Killererin, scoring an astonishing 1-11 as his club Kilkerrin-Clonberne stormed to a 3-14 to 0-7 victory in the Galway championship.
There are a few reasons why Walsh’s performance will have gone down well with the Tribe faithful.
Such is the claustrophobic nature of the Connacht Championship that even at three months’ remove, Galway and Mayo are already eyeing each other up.
It is a tad simplistic to suggest that the outcome of a November Connacht final will hang on a couple of players. But top-scoring forwards matter and while Walsh was red hot, Cillain O’Connor was turning a far uglier shade of red in the Mayo championship on Saturday evening.
O’Connor, freshly rehabbed from knee surgery, was shown a straight red card as Ballintubber managed to score 0-7 — half of Walsh’s personal tally — when drawing with
Aghamore. It means that the 28-year-old Mayo sharp-shooter will miss next weekend’s game against Moy Davitt’s.
In normal circumstances, a key county player missing a game because of suspension would hardly bother Mayo boss James Horan, but the county’s all-time top scorer needs to gain match fitness, and the sooner, the better — especially given the fact that Mayo must overcome defending champions Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final to have any hope of meeting Galway in the provincial decider.
However, the real comfort for Galway fans is that Walsh’s form may ease the nagging fear that Galway, in the opening months of their tenure under Padraic Joyce, had bolted too quickly out of the blocks for their own good.
When the Covid-19 shutters slammed down, the Tribesmen sat at the top of the Division 1 table with one foot in the final.
It is true that Galway were in this position as recently as two years ago, when they backed up a spring surge that saw them reach the League final with success in Connacht and a place in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Galway were nearing the end of their journey with Joyce’s successor Kevin Walsh — it was his penultimate season in a five-year reign — so it could be argued that they were ready to last the pace, but with a rookie manager the fear sometimes is that enthusiasm and momentum papers over cracks that become exposed later in the year.
Given the brutishly fractured nature of this season, all bets are off, but in the last decade there has been evidence of early season bolters crashing into a wall in the Championship.
Derry and Cork defied all expectations by qualifying for the 2014 and 2015 League finals, but both endured wipe-out summers, with Derry knocked out of the qualifiers by Longford, while Cork manager Brian Cuthbert walked away after an eight-point defeat to Kildare.
Roscommon defied expectations they would be relegated and qualified for the League semi-final in 2016, but were blessed not to lose to New York in the Connacht Championship. By the end of the summer their management split as Kevin McStay decided to proceed without Fergal O’Donnell.
McStay would admit afterwards that the effort they had invested in the League campaign came back to bite them.
That point, given that we are talking essentially about a new season, hardly applies to Galway, but mentally it is likely they were tuned into the early rounds of the League better than most of their opponents.
Walsh’s declaration of intent at the weekend would suggest that their best player is still very much in the zone.
It might seem odd in a squad game to place so much emphasis on one player, but Walsh’s talent — allied to Damien Comer’s presence in the full-forward line — is such that Galway can pose the type of questions that inter-county defences will struggle to answer.
His influence was there for all to see this spring. He was top of the scoring charts after five rounds having racked up 2-29. But the numbers parentheses after his name were not as eye catching as Joyce’s decision, in the ultimate in declaration of faith, to name him Galway’s captain.
If there has been an obvious flaw in the 26-year-old’s armoury it is a lack of consistency, with the accusation that rather than imposing himself in big games, he sometimes drifts out of them.
His ability has never been questioned. His point in a free-scoring qualifier game against Tipperary in 2014 was born of imagination and exceptional control. It made him an instant sensation.
Paul Conroy’s long-range free dropped short and he ran from the end line to meet it, but instead of bending to gather it, he met it with a cushioned volley that popped into his hands, allowing him to pivot and swing the ball over the bar in one movement.
He would end that season — Alan Mulholland’s final one in charge — shortlisted for the Young Footballer of the Year Award having racked up 1-19 in five games. Incredibly, it would take Walsh three full Championship campaigns under Walsh to match that tally.
There were a number of factors at play — he broke his hand in a fatal car accident in which he was a passenger — but Kevin Walsh sought to provide some defensive structure to a team with a reputation for giving up too many scores.
It did not sit well with Galway football traditionalists and there were times when the Tribesmen’s most natural player struggled to adjust to the demands of a very different game.
Joyce’s arrival has provided a change of emphasis, one that is timely given that a degree of orthodoxy has been embraced by all the top teams. This new approach has brought out the best in his star player.
And it also means that when Stephen Cluxton returns for Dublin, this winter’s Championship will be adorned by quite a spectacular collection of captains.
The big men of Aidan O’Shea and Michael Murphy leading Mayo and Donegal respectively, Mattie Donnelly fit enough to lead Tyrone again, and David Clifford leading out Kerry.
This year is an opportunity for Walsh to remind the GAA public that when it comes to having a talented leader, a seat will be reserved for him at the most exclusive of tables.
“Galway’s best
player is still in the zone” “His lack of
consistency is his only flaw”