By John Fogarty
Kilkenny hurling legend Tommy Walsh has revealed he chose to retire after losing his starting position, but not before he had helped his younger teammates – including his brother Padraic – to win an All-Ireland title.
In an in-depth interview with the official GAA website ahead of his Bord Gáis GAA Legends tour in Croke Park this Saturday, the Tullaroan man felt he was coming to an end when he was moved into the attack in training and appeared there as a substitute in games.
He insists he never aimed to finish his inter-county career at the height of his powers.
“I knew when I was moved from the backs into the forwards that the time was coming,” he said.
“If I was in the backs you might be out of form but you’d get back into it. My natural position is in the backs – that’s where I love hurling, that’s where I love training and love playing. I suppose the forwards is a bit different to that and when I did move up I knew that it would be my last year.
“I never wanted to go out on a high. My thing was to go whenever I wasn’t being picked. I didn’t think it would come that early and I thought I might get another year or two out of it. I was obviously hoping to go as long as I could and it did end a bit early for me.”
“I would hate to be sitting back at home and thinking that if I stayed I could still have been playing. That would have been a bigger regret of mine. I’m happy the way I went out but obviously I would have liked if it had gone on a bit longer.”
He was delighted to have won a Celtic Cross alongside his younger sibling, who wore the No5 jersey against Tipperary that Walsh had made his own.
“The big thing for me was I had a brother that had no All-Ireland medal and I wanted to make sure he had one in his back pocket. To see your own brother there makes up for the disappointment that you wouldn’t be playing yourself. To see him being picked for the replay, having such a great day and winning the All-Ireland, was a very proud moment for myself and the family.”
Walsh also wanted to help those who had helped him to win All-Irelands. As he explained: “I was on the team for so many years and there were so many subs put in so much effort when I was playing. I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to put medals in lads’ pockets – the likes of Conor Fogarty and Lester Ryan, all these guys that spent years as subs when I was on the team and they trained as hard as anyone.
“They drove me and the rest of the group to win All-Irelands. I wanted to make sure I was one of those lads and to make sure I helped them out in that way.”