Walter Walsh knows no place can be taken for granted in Kilkenny

Around 8pm on Friday evening, Brian Cody will assemble the entire Kilkenny hurling squad in the upstairs meeting room adjacent to Nowlan Park. In his hand will be a large clipboard cataloguing the various details of Sunday's All-Ireland final.

The time of departure to Croke Park. What and what not to bring. And then, on the last page, the names of the 15 players who will start, plus the 11 substitutes. With that Cody will wish everyone good luck. No questions and certainly no debate.

This may not be the exact chain of events, but it is how Walter Walsh describes them, and he's sat in that upstairs meeting room on a couple of unforgettable occasions. He'll sit there again this Friday evening, more than half-expecting to be named among the 15 starters for Sunday's final showdown against Galway.

It was a lot different three years ago, when Walsh had never started a senior championship match for Kilkenny.

Then, following the 2012 All-Ireland final draw with Galway, Cody turned the last page on the clipboard and announced that Walsh would start the replay. No questions and certainly no debate.

“Yeah it was the Friday night,” Walsh recalls.

"And when the page was flicked back, I suppose I didn't expect to see my name there. But it was. And I was quite shocked, as you can imagine. I was also lucky in the sense I had Henry Shefflin, Tommy Walsh, David Herity, these guys were very good, and just told me to treat it like another game. Not to be too nervous. And that's all I tried to do.

"And that was it, it was left at that. You just go home. I think I went home with Eoin Murphy, and again he just told me to treat it as any other game. Obviously I got a lot of good luck messages, more that I would have the first game, but that was it. I thought I was going well in training, getting a few scores and that. But to be honest I wasn't thinking about starting at all. I was hopeful of coming on, that's what I said to myself."

Walsh was 21 years old, a complete unknown, and about to start one of Kilkenny’s biggest matches of the decade.

Even his club, Tullogher Rosbercon, in the very south of Kilkenny, was largely unheralded. He spent the Saturday before the game on the family dairy farm, trying not to think too much about the task now suddenly at hand.

Some nerves

“I tried to keep it a normal Saturday, at home on the farm. I did a small bit of work, not too much, just to keep the mind off the game. And tried to eat well, keep hydrated, and make sure you’ve all your ear. Things you can control. I had that all ready on the Saturday night, and actually slept very well.

“There were some nerves going up on the bus, that Sunday morning, but probably not as much as there should have been. I’d say I’d be even more nervous about the games now. I was just very relaxed, maybe because I didn’t know, and it was all new to me. I didn’t know how severe it was, that I was playing.”

As it turned out Walsh had no reason to be nervous, as the game unfolded like a dream. He scored 1-3, set up several more, and Kilkenny won handsomely. Later that evening, at the team celebrations back at Citywest Hotel, he found out he was also named The Sunday Game's man of the match.

“It was all very surreal. I was in shock after the game, and wasn’t even thinking about man of the match, until someone said it to me. I was just delighted with winning an All-Ireland. That’s what it’s all about. The personal things come after, but as a team, that’s all you want.”

Flip side

It wasn’t long before Walsh experienced the flip side of that clipboard. He struggled with a knee and elbow injury in 2013, then last year won back a starting place for the 2014 All-Ireland final against Tipperary, which also ended in a draw.

Then, the Friday evening before the replay, Cody turned the last page on the clipboard, only this time Walsh wasn’t named in the starting 15.

"Yeah, that was different," he recalls. "Every player wants to be playing, but if someone is going better than you they deserve to be playing. And that's the way it was. John Power was brilliant that day, scored 1-1, and we really needed that. Again you're just delighted to win the All-Ireland."

Major surprise

Still, it will be a major surprise if Walsh’s name isn’t among the 15, given he’s started every league and championship match this year. He puts this consistency down to natural progression and, at age 24, there’s more consistency to his life outside hurling, too.

He teaches science at St Benildus College in the leafy south Dublin suburb of Stillorgan, where he also lives, and this total anonymity outside of Kilkenny has helped focus the mind completely.

“It’s definitely different to Kilkenny, and it’s probably nicer that way. You get on with your job, get on with whatever you do outside of hurling. This year I have been that bit more consistent, but you can never be too sure. The way I look at it, I still never expect to see my name. So you’d be still nervous going into those meetings, whether you get to start or not. There’s always the worry, and it has to be that way, if you want to be successful. There has to be competition for places, and we certainly have that.”