Walsh’s revival a delight
WE love a feel-good story don’t we? We’re suckers for a comeback. There’s nothing we like more than to see somebody come good against the odds and the odds on Tommy Walsh’s return to front line football seemed longer than most.
Having tried once and once failed to make an impact with the Kerry senior footballers upon his return from Australia, many if not most of us would have felt that was that for the Strand Road man with the green and gold.
A litany of injuries during his spell Down Under seemed to have diminished him as a footballer. The pace was gone and, not to put too fine a point on it, he simply didn’t seem lithe anymore. The spirit was willing, the body just wouldn’t comply.
Walsh walked away from the Kerry panel before the 2016 championship frustrated not to have been able to make a greater contribution and it’s from here that one of the most remarkable turnarounds transpired – with his people, in his own patch, in his own club.
Probably when Walsh left the Kerry set-up he never envisaged a return, let alone one as brilliant as this one has been so far. Instead everything he did since then was for himself and for his club and it could well be that this is why it worked so beautifully.
Back on the playing fields of Strand Road and Ballyrickard, Walsh was playing for the love of the game and loving playing the game.
It’s certainly no coincidence that Kerins O’Rahillys’ fortunes have improved considerably since then and neither, we suspect, is it a coincidence that Walsh’s revival came under Micheál Quirke’s supervision.
A quality coach, Quirke has coxed and coached his former inter-county colleague into becoming once again one of the most effective forwards in the Kerry Senior Football Championship.
No question Walsh has done a mountain of work on himself in the last two and-a-half years – he looks so sharp, so lithe and even seems to have had a pair of afterburners attached – but we’ve a feeling Quirke has done wonders for him too. Trusting in him, making him the focal point of his team, letting him reemerge as what he always was – a big game player, a leader of men. That’s certainly what he’s looked over the course of the National Football League.
Yes he’s been brilliant with the mark, but there’s been a lot more to his game than his (admittedly brilliant) fielding ability. Walsh’s utility to Peter Keane won’t disappear when the mark goes away at the end of the league.
The fair-haired boy is back and it’s great to see.