HE MAKES IT LOOK EASY
Galway’s new captain Shane can become the best player in country
SHANE Walsh’s ability to freestyle remains as potent as ever. In Galway’s fourth round league win over Tyrone, he waved the ball in front of the face of All-Star full-back Ronan McNamee, before eventually making it disappear.
Late in the game, he teased McNamee with the ball on his right foot, shifting his weight to suggest he was going to pull the trigger, but in a blink of an eye it was on his left and the tormented Tyrone full-back was left on the ground watching as it sailed between the posts.
Doing the hard things has always come easily to Walsh.
In 2014, his second season but the first in which he became a regular starter, he turned Tullamore’s O’Connor Park into a Brazilian beach. In a game to his liking – loose and high-scoring – he stole the show with an act of genius.
As Paul Conroy’s long-range free dropped short he ran from the end line to meet it, but instead of bending to catch, he met it with a cushioned instep volley that popped into his hands, allowing him to pivot and swing the ball over the bar in one movement.
Given that talent, the wonder is why Shane Walsh was not David Clifford before we even heard of David Clifford. Right up to the point before Covid-19 darkened life and sport, Walsh was in the form of his life and appeared to have teed up a career defining season.
Indeed, in Stephen Cluxton’s absence, alongside Clifford and Michael Murphy, in terms of his form he not only ranked as one of the best three in the country, he could also be considered one of the top three most influential captains.
The first will be no surprise to those who have seen him manipulate a football, but the latter is harder to imagine for those who played with him.
Finian Hanley, former Galway full-back captain, played with Walsh from 2-13 to 2017 before a cruciate ligament injury brought it all to an end. He has seen enough at this stage not to be surprised but when his former team-mate Padraic Joyce named Walsh as his captain, it was one that he did not see coming.
‘I was surprised at first because I would not have labelled him as one but no better man than Padraic to tell him to buck up and not waste what really are his best years,’ suggests Hanley.
‘I think it will really suit him. It will give him a level of purpose which was maybe not so evident in the early years. He was kind of dragging along when we wanted him to drag us along because of the talent he had.
‘He was using the talent he had but not so much the other things like training hard, diet and game management. To get to the top level, you have to have all those attributes as well as the skill. You look at the likes of Ciaran Kilkenny, Michael Murphy, Gooch Cooper, they had the skill but they trained hard, because skills are only 20% of the make-up of a top player and it’s in the other 80% that Shane is now making ground in terms of applying himself, showing leadership, training hard, getting fit, getting strong.’
Walsh racked up 2-29 in the opening five rounds, but his influence, not least in terms of playmaking, extended far beyond that.
The 26-year-old’s scoring stats are impressive but still arguably not as good as they could be.
He has scored 4-101 in 31 championship appearances, although that figure is naturally inflated by his tally from dead-ball conversions. In open play, his tally is 3-37 – which amounts to a tally of less than 1.5 points per game, hardly a true measure of his potential.
There have been a couple of factors at play as to why that is the case, perhaps the most potent the challenge he faced in fitting into Kevin Walsh’s nuanced defensive game-plan over five years.
In what was effectively his first full season in 2014 (and Alan Mulholland’s last as manager) he racked up 1-29 in five games, which saw him short-listed for young player of the year.
It would take him more than three full championship campaigns and 14 games under Walsh to equal that tally.
There were other factors – his 2015 summer was interrupted by a hand injury sustained as a passenger in a taxi involved in a fatal car accident – but he struggled to adapt to a role which stress-tested areas of his game beyond his skill level.
‘He was a young kid and his football reflected his personality in that it was very carefree, but at that stage there was a big emphasis on strength and conditioning, and on tackle counts and blanket defences and that was not for Shane then. It took a bit from him in that for a couple of years he was not able to express himself.
‘He always had the talent but his application was not where it needed to be and I suppose for those of us who were poorer footballers but were striving to get a little bit better and to have a guy with that talent, you just wanted him to apply himself a bit more,’ explains Hanley. But if you look closely enough, the leader in Walsh has always been there.
He was hamstrung for the 2012 Connacht colleges final but still came off the bench for St Jarlath’s against Summerhill with 11 minutes remaining to kick five points and snatch a come-frombehind one-point win. ‘He only had about 30 per cent in his right hamstring. He was unreal, he kicked points off his left and right from all angles.
‘We were down by five and won it by one, with Shane kicking the winner in injury-time.
‘It was an unbelievable performance from a player who was injured,’ recalled Niall Coyne, the former Galway player, who was a member of the St Jarlath’s management team at the time.
They could see the leader in him then and now everyone is getting to see it. ‘He is a great lad and that is why I am so delighted to see him doing what he has been doing. He is an enthusiastic guy, and he is still a young kid at heart in that he just wants to go out and express himself,’ suggests Hanley.
‘Padraic is good for him and I think he has made him realise he is 26 now and he has just got a few years left to get to the top.
‘He has laid the responsibility on his shoulders and I think they will have a great relationship.
‘He has the potential to be the best player in the country but, as captain, he needs his team-mates to get him there.’
‘It suits him. It will give him a level of purpose’
‘He always had talent but not enough application’