WALSH READY FOR FRAY AS CATS EYE UP FINAL GLORY
VERA PAUW was back on her favourite hobby horse this past week following her Ireland side’s disappointing performances against Iceland. The women’s soccer manager felt that the only way young Irish players would improve was by ‘training and playing with boys’.
Miriam Walsh is testament to the benefits of girls mixing with boys on the playing field. When she was growing up, there was no underage camogie in Tullaroan. While some of her friends sought out the nearest club, she played on underage boys teams, hurling in an Under-14 Féile competition along with her cousin, Kilkenny star Pádraig.
‘I remember starting at fullforward on that Féile team,’ Walsh recalls with a smile. ‘I don’t know if I was any good or not, I might have been making up the numbers. But I played with the boys right up to U14 and actually for a small bit of U16 too before eventually we got a camogie team going.
‘A few of the girls from the local area, they would have gone and played with other clubs that were near us. But I was stubborn. I didn’t want to play for another club.
‘I wanted to stay with Tullaroan so I don’t think I had a choice but to play with the boys.’
She didn’t know any different. Miriam lived next to her cousins, Pádraig and Grace. Hurling matches were organised for the back garden where no quarter was given.
‘You can’t even describe the battles we used to have in the back garden. They were so competitive, they used to be literally blood, sweat and tears,’ Walsh recalled earlier this week.
This evening, she will take her place alongside cousin Grace in the Kilkenny side that faces Galway in the Littlewoods camogie final at Croke Park. She believes those garden scrapes with the boys have helped them both to mature into better players.
‘It was girls and boys playing against each other and we would play on the same under-age teams.
‘You were treated as a boy when we were younger and I suppose that has definitely added to our games. Myself and Grace definitely benefited from that.’ Pádraig Walsh is now one of the key cogs of Brian Cody’s Kilkenny side, slipping seamlessly into the role once played by his brother, the legendary Tommy. He remembers well the battles at the back of the house with Miriam.
‘Yeah, when we were growing up, nearly every day, we would be going down to Miriam’s house or she would be coming over to ours and we had a fair few battles in the garden. And the girls would be hitting as hard as we did.’ Pádraig is accustomed to the fame and profile that comes with wearing the black and amber around the Marble City. Camogie lingers in hurling’s shadow but he feels that the game is growing, and the latest instalment of the Kilkenny-Galway rivalry tonight will help to grow it more.
‘It is great to see the Kilkenny side getting a higher profile, because they certainly deserve it,’ he says. ‘I saw a stat last week where one in two saw a hurling match last year and one in five saw a camogie game. So, it is growing and there is more promotion put into it.
‘In the last few weeks, I was able to watch the Kilkenny girls play against Limerick, Offaly and Dublin, games which normally wouldn’t be on TV.
‘But they were streamed and it was great to have them on the laptop and be able to text into the family WhatsApp group, because we were all watching the girls playing.’
If there had been a hurling league final, it would also have involved Kilkenny and Galway, and tonight’s game could have been part of a double-header, which Pádraig feels would also enhance the profile of camogie. ‘I think it would be great for the game, and it would get even more people interested, if there were more of these doubleheaders. There would be a great buzz and it would give camogie even more recognition.’
Despite the strides made in promotion and marketing, recognition remains a problem. Recent research shows that 89 per cent of the general public didn’t know a camogie player – the helmets probably don’t help in that regard, an issue that hurling also has to contend with.
‘It was mind-blowing, that it was as high as 89 per cent,’ Miriam admits. ‘It’s sad that our own population don’t know us as players. But look, Littlewoods Ireland are doing a great job in trying to promote it and hopefully, this time next year, our own population will recognise that bit more.
‘Even the fact that we are getting featured on The Sunday Game, people from around Kilkenny are getting tuned into what we are doing and starting to get behind the camogie team.
‘We train just as hard as the men, so it’s important to get that equality as well.’
Rivalries tend to help grow sport and this one between Kilkenny and Galway is evolving into a real humdinger.
With throw-in at 7.30 tonight, Walsh is hopeful that more casual fans will tune in and see what it is
‘I WAS TOO STUBBORN TO GO OFF AND PLAY WITH ANOTHER CLUB’
‘IT IS SAD THAT OUR OWN PEOPLE DON’T KNOW US AS PLAYERS’
all about. ‘We have become big rivals over the past few years, and we always have brilliant battles and there will be battles all over the pitch again. And the games between us are always so close that you couldn’t pick who is going to win.’
Miriam Walsh has come a long way from the young girl who was hurling with her cousins in the back garden and travelling up to Croke Park to watch her cousin Tommy do his thing in the greatest hurling side to have graced the game, one day dreaming that it would be her.
That dream has long since come true and in front of a few thousand spectators in Croke Park this evening, cousins Miriam and Grace Walsh will be planning to add to the family’s glittering medal collection, with the roots of their ambitions nurtured in those back garden battles.