Some lads are glad to get out of it.
Sick of the slogging and with injuries catching up on them, there comes a time around the age of 35 when they’ve enough done. For many, that day comes earlier. For a rare few it comes later.
Step up, Tommy Walsh.
Looking back, asking the 35-year-old if he was going to come back for another year’s hurling with Tullaroan was probably a silly enough question for a man who’s eyes light at the mere mention of the word but having agonisingly missed out on intermediate glory in Kilkenny for three years in a row and with the last one so visually cutting him to bits, it’d take a fair 35-year-old to be mad for it in January again.
That’s exactly what Tommy Walsh is though and that’s exactly what he wants to do, not just for next year, but deep into his 40s.
“I’ll come back for another five years hopefully, whether I’m on the team or not, I don’t know,” he said with a laugh to us recently at the eir sports’ launch of their National League coverage.
“The aim is to stay going until I’m into my 40s because you’re retired long enough and sitting around eating Pringles and boxes of roses…”
That’s not Tommy scene. He sees potential in this Tullaroan team and when he’s still enjoying every yard of every ball pucked like he did when he was a young lad why would he even think about leaving it all behind him?
“No, ah I love it, we’ve a very young team at the club and there’s a huge culture being built at the moment and down our club at the moment, you’ve hurling under-7 all the way up to intermediate, you’ve camogie from under-six all the way up. We’ve ladies Gaelic football, we’re now putting in our first junior men’s football team in years, we’ve a racquet ball alley, we’ve an athletics club down in the hurling field. It’s a hive of activity at the moment and even though we had a massive disappointment in the final, it’s as good a time to be in the club as I can remember and I want to be part of that for another few years.”
Tullaroan U10 Team CBS Blitz pic.twitter.com/t1M6Szk7ug
— Tullaroan GAA (@TullaroanHurlin) April 1, 2017
Tullaroan are planning for the future and Tommy is at the forefront of that and he will be for as long as he’s able to be too.
“The culture is nearly everything now, because there’s so many distractions, you have computer games, you have college and social stuff…There are so many reasons now not to go to the hurling field and if you don’t have the right set-up, you’re not going to bring them in so I think the culture is huge. If there’s lads in college and they want to come back training, that’s what you want. You know then that you’re doing something right and the club is doing something right.”
“There’s another group of lads, around 21/22 who are just devoted 110% to hurling. You’ve guys going off and you’re wondering will they be home from college, you know these guys will so when you have that going on it just drives on the whole spirit of a club and then everyone, the supporters, the families get behind you and it’s a special thing to be part of. You can’t beat youth, there’s energy, enthusiasm and they’re afraid of nothing, I think we have that at the moment and that’s why it’s so exciting…”
“We’re trying to keep that going in the club and we’re trying to build it.
That’s a club going places and that’s a man going nowhere soon.
