Still calling the shots

When trying to describe how good someone is in the women’s game the best recourse is to turn to the men’s game.

Who would be the hurling equivalent of Gemma O’Connor? Tommy Walsh. For consistency, versatility, fearlessness, aggression and sheer mastery, he’s the nearest thing to her and she’s the nearest thing to him.

Ten years now Walsh is playing senior inter-county hurling and still he doesn’t know what it’s like to end a season without an All Star award. O’Connor is similarly accustomed to the red carpet treatment. For six consecutive years she was an All Star, an unprecedented streak in the history of camogie, and that run probably would have extended to eight had the scheme been in operation in her debut season of 2002.