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Shane Walsh and Ian Burke are side-by-side in the Galway forward line these days, but that wasn’t always the way.
The pair were travelling to Carrick-on-Shannon for Sunday’s clash with Armagh when, between them, they began to reminisce on days gone by.
Walsh and Burke are the same age – they’re both 30 – but, to Walsh’s frustration as a youngster, their underage inter-county careers never really over-lapped until minor level.
Back in the day, Walsh was always envious of Burke who, from under-14 all the way up, was a key player for every Galway team there was.
Walsh, on the other hand, didn’t make his first Galway team until his last year minor.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on this week’s GAA Hour, Walsh explained how his failure to make that Galway underage teams taught him a crucial lesson early on in his career.
“It was a slow process. I remember when they picked the Ted Webb (CountyU-16 team), it used to be split, city and west/north county Galway,” says Walsh.
“There was 30 players on both sides, and I wasn’t one of those 30 players. You’re going home upset, thinking am I really good enough.
“On the way to the game on Sunday, myself and Burkey were chatting about it, he was on every underage squad up until senior level, whereas I didn’t make anything until I was in my last year minor.”
Walsh used the blow as a motivation rather than accepting it as a sign of things to come, however. And he says the resilience it taught him is still relevant to his game, none-more-so than after a tough day like last Sunday, where he missed a late free to draw the game.
“I had to go back and develop that self-belief that all the time I spent outside practicing and playing, that I have to be able to show them that they’re essentially wrong, that I should be there.
“That is part of it for me that made me be able to take those tough experiences to bring it forward.
“It’s the very same as yesterday,” he says of missing that late free vs Armagh.
“I’m never afraid of putting myself out there in moments where things can go wrong for you on the biggest stage and that happens and you just have to learn from it, bring it forward and try and change it the next day – and that’s the way it is.”
It was on their way to Sunday’s game, shooting the breeze before throw-in, when Walsh and Burke noted that, of the 30 players who made that Galway under-16 panel in their age group, Burke is the only one who’s playing senior for Galway now. It got him thinking.
It’s anomalies like this and tales from his own experience that inspired Walsh to start his own summer camps, upskillcamps, which will go from Kilmacud to Letterkenny, to Clonakilty to Sarsfields in Kildare, to Castlebar and back home to Kilkerrin-Clonberne over the next few weeks.
The idea of the camps, Walsh says, is to provide hands-on training to the 13-16 year-olds who may not have made their county panels.
The first day of the camps took place in Kilmacud on Monday and Walsh, who works as a PE teacher in Loreto Abbey College in Dalkey, said he enjoyed every second of it.
“It was brilliant. There was club players, boys and girls, from all over Dublin, Ballymun, Clontarf, Kilmacud and Ballinteer. It’s very enjoyable. It’s a big window for me to give my knowledge from inter-county experience to young players who are aspiring to play for their counties down the line.
“After Cúl Camps, there’s not a huge window there in regards to unless you make an under-14/16 development squad with the county. Outside of that, there isn’t much for them. For me it’s a chance to give back some things that I’ve learned over time and I said that if I could give back to the next generation, wouldn’t it be great?”
“The greatest satisfaction for me, is to work with someone, and to see them improve.”
