The career of Tommy Walsh has been an illustrious one, winning nine All-Ireland intercounty titles and just as many All Stars. But, until now, a county title with his native Tullaroan has eluded him.
With victory today over Thomastown in Nowlan Park however, Tommy Walsh and Tullaroan are county champions, bridging a gap that goes back to 1994 when the club last claimed county honours.
After the final whistle, Walsh gave an emotional interview to Nickey Brennan and fought hard to hold back the tears as he spoke about the years without experiencing club success.
He said:
The Tullaroan people went through some suffering over the years with hurling, sports-wise I'm talking about. They've had big losses after big losses. We were on a great Kilkenny team and we were winning the whole time.
But this team had to come back after getting bet after bet, throwing away leads. We just stayed going and going. We said we were going to die or we were going to win a county final. And thank God we won the county final.
For years I was celebrating with Kilkenny and the Tullaroan people were great to me. They backed me up, this and that. But I wanted to share something with them that we could share together. I've never had that in my whole adult life. I could never share victory with Tullaroan.
Thank God for today. We're going to share it for the whole winter and we'll knuckle down and we'll try and do well in Leinster.
