‘Refs need help to stop diving and dirty belts’
Galway hero Walsh calls on Croke Park to bring in TMO
THERE are certain players who are the picture of liquid flow in possession. Like Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé in soccer, or Steph Curry in basketball, Shane Walsh is one of those who seems to glide across the ground.
In the first half of this year’s novel Connacht final at Croke Park, all of the best parts of his game were on display. When a point attempt came back off the upright in the 19th minute, it was the Galway captain who scooted on to it at full pelt before unleashing a rocket to the net with his left boot to put his team 1-3 to 0-4 ahead.
He already had a point to his name at that stage. Then in the 27th minute, he took a short handpass from Liam Silke on the Hogan Stand touchline, just inside the Mayo half. With Michael Plunkett, Aidan O’Shea and Patrick Durcan all dotted in his vicinity, he looked boxed in. A feint to go forward gave him a bit of extra space before he skipoed backward, ball in hand, allowing himself just enough room to set off down the sideline, torching past O’Shea and even getting inside the athletic dynamo of Durcan to square the ball for Damien Comer to hit the net. At 2-3 to 0-4, Galway, and Walsh, were flying it.
Five minutes later, he was stretched out on the pitch needing medical attention after being dump tackled to the ground by Mayo defender Pádraig O’Hora after tangling off the ball.
It still rankles now. Justifiably so. His manager Pádraic Joyce was angry and frustrated afterwards and Galway’s season fell apart in a second half when Walsh played on after an injection killed the pain of the broken bone and torn ligaments in his shoulder.
Speaking yesterday at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of Féile, sponsored once again by John West, it’s clear the scars haven’t fully healed — in every sense. Walsh talks openly and honestly about how hard it has been since, making a convincing case for why the introduction of a Television Match Official (TMO) would help the game. ‘The news afterwards was that I cracked the bone in the shoulder and tore ligaments and there was a lot of bruising around the shoulder. So I missed the next eight weeks. Missed our first club championship game. Back for the last two. But my fitness wasn’t where I’d like it to be because I was in a sling for the guts of three or four weeks as well. Not too fond of it. It kinda happens in games too. But frustrating.’
He admits now that the injection at half-time couldn’t mask the pain and that he shouldn’t have come out for the second half that Mayo dominated and left Galway to a bruising period of self-reflection.
‘I was trying to get anything to numb the pain in the shoulder to be honest. I was in a lot of pain. After the initial incident happened I thought I was fine. I thought it might be just the bang after I was pulled to the ground. But I kicked a free just after that with my left foot and the shock from the nerves — it sent a trigger up to my right shoulder.
‘I was in agony. I said I’d get to half-time. I was trying then to do anything, said if I could numb it at all, I’ll deal with the repercussions afterwards. That’s the bullish notions you get when you’re in the middle of a game.’
Joyce voiced his anger publicly over the incident and Walsh sees it as helping to make the case for the GAA to look at a TMO.
‘I’d probably be one who would be in favour of a TMO coming in to GAA because there is an awful lot of stuff like that going on. For me, it’s very frustrating. Your Championship game is taken away from you in a couple of seconds. In fairness, if it happens on the ball, you’re unlucky and it happens. But it wasn’t on the ball.
‘When I put my hand across as he was running out, he was the one who initiated the grabbing of me and bringing me to the ground. It happened so quickly and I was tired at the time. I was after running for the second goal. There needs to be more done because there are linesmen there. Referees need support in games. It’s very hard. The game is moving on so quickly.
‘There is all this structure talk and rule changes but refs have to deal with all of that, keep the flow of the game and then watching what else is going on around
“The game is moving so quickly for officials now”
them. It’s difficult for them. I think more help is needed.’
The official highlights clip put out by the GAA of Championship matches is a whitewash too. It airbrushes the tackle — and the sight of Walsh on the ground — from history. In a way, it sums up the PR-driven packages that are put together of the matches that regularly omit incidents of foul play or any controversy, a practice that effectively only condones the same and doesn’t tell the full story of a game.
The merits of VAR in the Premier League in England have been hotly disputed in recent times but Walsh points to the established practice of videoing matches by county teams.
‘It could easily be the case of another camera. Or the way they have the drone is set up for videoing games, that somebody could be interacting with that to see.
‘If you take [referees] Conor Lane or Maurice Deegan, that there’s a buzzing in the ear to say, “Look, we’ve spotted something off the ball here”. If they want to have a camera on the side of the pitch… it probably should be a ref that’s monitoring that and you take their word for it. Or video evidence at the end of a game if warranted.’
Walsh sees rugby as the model, more so than soccer.
‘If you look at the rugby version of it, it’s basically citing for something that was missed by the referee in general areas, like probably a serious tackle or something like that. Generally speaking, you’re trying to cut out that cynical play in games. It’s happening all the time. On the ball it’s more obvious whereas off-the-ball stuff is hard to spot.
‘But you need to cut that out as well because young kids, they see that now and they replicate everything. You see under-8s and 9s in my own club and they’d nearly be simulating diving because they see soccer players on TV at it — a case of two players going for a ball and rolling on the ground if they don’t win it, holding their face nearly. I’m shocked.
‘There is scope there. At the end of the day, players have to be looked after. It’s all about player welfare. The GAA has to be doing their best to make sure the players are looked after. They are the ones taking to the pitch. You want the best ones doing that.’
Walsh is honest enough to admit he’s a purist in terms of how he would like to see the game being played; a view not universally shared.
‘People say maybe I’m too pure-minded in relation to thinking like that, but we weren’t coached to foul. Like when I was younger I was never coached to pull a lad to the ground or to hit a belt to a lad off the ball.
‘You were coached to tackle the ball, your hands on the ball, and you back yourself.. And we’d have done a lot of work in relation to footwork, putting your feet in the right position, because at the end of the day it should work, that’s the way football should be played.
‘But look that’s me, thinking I’m one of the purists, that’s the way football should be played,’ Walsh added.