Less than one-quarter of an hour in at Parnell Park and already he had a brace of left-footed goals to his name. Just Rory O’Carroll doing Shane Walsh things.
O’Carroll’s two goals were the unanticipated quirks in an afternoon that otherwise stuck mainly to the script. The former Dublin full back had never scored a goal in senior championship football for Kilmacud Crokes, but he netted two in six minutes on Sunday against Templeogue Synge Street.
You would have got some odds on O’Carroll outscoring Walsh in this or any other match, but then again who would have predicted the mercurial Galway player’s first game of football after July’s All-Ireland final defeat to Kerry would be a Dublin club championship game?
But so it was. Walsh, whose transfer from Kilkerrin/Clonberne to Crokes went through late last month, started the game on the bench and he was introduced in the 42nd minute, at a stage when Crokes were already 14 points ahead.
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His first play for his new club was a popped pass to Paul Mannion. Then, in the 56th minute, he capitalised on some poor defensive play to set up a shot on his left but dummied two defenders, jinked to his opposite leg and caressed the ball over the bar with his right. Walsh’s score put his side 21 points in front and received the biggest cheer of the day, presumably because it gave Crokes a little breathing space.
At the final whistle, he was surrounded by children looking for autographs and selfies, leaving no doubt who was the main attraction. Just a few metres away, Rory Ronaldo O’Carroll was left to fist-bump dejected Templeogue players and wonder where his fanfare was. You wait your whole life to score a couple of goals for your club and then some lad from Galway skips in and steals your moment.
Turns out it was also Walsh’s first time to play at Parnell Park.
“The Dubs don’t like to play outside Croke Park sure,” he laughed afterwards. “I was slagging Manno on the way in that I never got to play Dublin here. Nice pitch and lovely day for it as well. It’s always nice to say you scored in every pitch you played in, so that was just another monkey off the back, I suppose. The opportunity just presented itself so it was just nice to take the score.”
There is little doubt Walsh — who is teaching in the capital — will be starting matches as the championship heats up. For many reasons, not least the optics of it all, the Crokes management decided to hold him until the second half. They still scraped to a 3-25 to 1-6 win.
Exceptional player
The transfer has been the focus of much debate, coming as it did just weeks after Walsh had given one of the great All-Ireland final performances. So to be leaving his home club in Galway to join Crokes in Dublin was the kind of move that sets folk off.
“No matter when he came, just the fact that who he was and the All-Ireland final and what he produced, and coming to us and the perceptions around us as a big club which isn’t actually the case when you drill down into the numbers and that, but look, there was always going to be a bit of noise,” said Crokes manager Robbie Brennan.
“But it’s done now and he’s in and that was the first game to get out of the way and he did decent when he came in. What would we do, turn him away? There is a process, and I’ve said this before, there is a process in Kilmacud and just because you want to join doesn’t mean you get to join. There’s plenty of guys who get turned away for different reasons but Shane ticked all the boxes. You’re not going to say no obviously when he wants to come and join you. So just fitting him in now is the challenge for us.”
Chances are Walsh will fit in just fine. To see him link up with Mannion during his brief cameo suggests they could terrorise defences in the capital and beyond in the weeks ahead.
Mannion, making his first playing return for the club since December 2021, scored nine points. Dessie Farrell, watching on, must surely get back on the phone to try to persuade him to return for Dublin in 2023.
Walsh managed to get two weeks of training in before the game. Crokes are the favourites to win the Dublin championship again. And after that, they hope Walsh and Mannion can lead them to an All-Ireland club title.
“Everybody is talking about the outside noise that there was an All-Ireland club final there last year and now go on and win it this year,” said Walsh. “But all of the lads were saying literally the same things, ‘let’s go and beat Templeogue’. That’s the way it is. For me, it’s money in the bank as far as football is concerned because my last game was the All-Ireland final. It’s just great to get the opportunity to get game-time because there were a few cobwebs there the last few weeks.”
By the time Walsh got to the dressingroom some his new team-mates were already on their way back out having showered and changed.
“He spoke at our meeting on Thursday, he speaks brilliantly about the game, he sees it very clearly. He understands it as you’d expect from someone at that level. He’s a big plus for us,” said Brennan.
And if Walsh and Mannion can’t get the job done up front for Kilmacud Crokes, there is always Rory O’Carroll.
