One look at Twitter, and you could tell there was a lot of love for Tommy Walsh from everyone tuning in tonight for our Off The Ball Roadshow at the Radisson Blu in Galway.
No surprises there as he was in his typically brilliant form with stories galore from his hurling days.
One dated back to his days when the motivation for victory did not lie in trophies as much as sporting footwear.
"There's a funny story. I was booed coming in today by the Galway lads. What I will say is my first match for Kilkenny was at under-14 and I was marking no other than the legend Johnny Maher. Myself and my father were still looking at the Youtube clips of him hitting all those lads in that county final a few years ago," said Walsh.
"I marked Johnny Marr and scored two points off him and I was looking at the Galway lads and they had lovely gear, they were beating everyone around them. We went on to play Galway in the Nenagh Co-op, the under-16 All Ireland. Ger Farragher was midfield, brilliant player again and scored 16 points and I think he scored most of them from play from midfield and knocked us out of that.
"But this is where the funny bit comes then. So we end up playing Laois in a Shield match and you'd be thinking about motivation. Our motivation, if you won the Shield, you got a new pair of boots. Everyone got a new pair of boots. So our manager John McCormack was on to us, 'Lads, you have to win this. We have to get those boots'.
"So we were playing Laois in the semi final and we were beating them by two points with about a minute to go. They got a free, a '21 on the sideline and one of the Laois lads went to take it and I started shouting at him. I was on the goal, 'You're going to miss it, you're going to miss it!' This is before sledging or any of that."
Unfortunately, that proved counterproductive for Walsh and his Kilkenny team-mates.
"The referee thought it was David Herity. Herity was on goal. So he brought David Herity out from the goal, started booking him, so everyone on the sideline was giving out about David Herity. What did the referee do? He brought the free from the sideline straight in front of the goal. Crazy stuff! What did the Laois lad do then? Put the ball down, buried it in the top corner. Laois beat us and we were going home without no boots and David Herity didn't talk to me for three years," he laughed.
This article was brought to you in association with Bord Gáis Energy, proud sponsor of the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship – keep up to date and follow #HurlingToTheCore
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
