Walsh happy with new role

Between action for club, county and country in an array of grades and in both codes, 2011 was a whirlwind of frenzied activity for Aidan Walsh.

When the constant stream of games concluded, he seized the chance to unwind by heading on a holiday to Australia at the end of December.

Walsh returned in late February to partake in Cork’s Division 1 football league campaign. And after striking 1-1 in Sunday’s defeat of Dublin that propelled Conor Counihan’s side into Sunday’s semi-final clash with Down, Walsh believes the break has been key to his good form.

“It was my only opportunity to get away and I really enjoyed it,’’ Walsh said. “It was nice to see my cousins that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I came back with the hunger to work hard and to look forward to the year again. Hopefully we can drive on from here. It is nice to concentrate fully on senior now. I was at the Clare game (in the Munster U21 semi-final) recently and I miss it alright. But it is nice to have just one thing to look forward to.”

Ever since Walsh burst onto the Cork squad in 2009, he has been jostling for a place in the Cork midfield. Yet this spring his role has been altered as he has been selected in the novel position of full-forward. It is not one he has been unaccustomed to, having filled that berth at stages during his club Kanturk’s run to the Cork junior football title last year. The inter-county game has been a step up but one Walsh has relished.

“I’m learning every game and I’m starting to enjoy it more after every game. It’s about learning how to be patient, how to time your runs. I had played there with the club during the year. It was something that was different.

“The way we play we’re rotating so no one spends too long in at full-forward. I don’t know is it a good thing or a bad thing because they can’t find a proper position for me! But I’m happy wherever Conor puts me. The league is there for experimentation and that is what we have been doing.”

Cork’s next assignment is a trip to Dublin on Sunday for a league semi-final where they will renew acquaintances with Down.

“It has always been tough games against them,” says Walsh. “We beat them the last two occasions convincingly enough. But I think they will come out with all guns blazing. They are a very good team. Every fella wants to play in Croke Park and the big open pitch probably suits us a bit better. Hopefully now we might get into the final. We won the league each of the last two years so it would be nice to get a third one.”

Meanwhile Bryan Sheehan has urged his Kerry side to learn from their Allianz Football League Division 1 draw with Mayo on Sunday ahead of next weekend’s league semi-final meeting of the counties. It took an injury-time Sheehan free to earn Kerry a draw (1-12 apiece) and ahead of the rematch this weekend, the All Star Kingdom midfielder admits they cannot afford to give Mayo time and space to play their football.

“We will knuckle down during the week, look at the video and work hard to make sure that we can cut out the mistakes that we made, and see where we can improve. Mayo always produce good teams, they’re a fit side and they play to a good system. They are quality footballers. You saw up in Castlebar against Dublin what they can do when you leave them play football. We left them play football for the first-half and we stood off them a small bit. We spoke at half-time about getting stuck into them. If you give them time and space they will kick good passes and scores. It’s about the pressure that you put on out the field, and we did up the tempo in the second-half.”

Even though Kerry had nothing but pride to play for against Mayo last Sunday, having already been assured top spot in Division 1, Sheehan explained it was the pride of the jersey that drove the team to battle back from eight points down before snatching that late equaliser.

“We don’t like losing at any stage of any competition, whether it’s the league or the championship. There is a lot of pride here with fellas. We didn’t do ourselves justice against Armagh in Tralee and we weren’t happy with that. We have to go out there and put on a show as well because the fans come here in their thousands to support us. You have to live up to the expectations of the Kerry jersey and we knew that we had to work very hard.

“Winning is a great habit to get into and it’s great to get into that winning mentality. We spoke about it before the game that we don’t want to lose matches, regardless of who we are playing. I thought we showed very good fighting spirit, which is a positive to take forward.”