All-Ireland winner set to make competitive debut for Leinster rugby this weekend

Irish Daily Mirror

23-04-2025

When Walter Walsh closed the door on his Kilkenny hurling career, he didn't expect the Leinster rugby one to swing open.
But the three-time All-Ireland winner is in line to make his debut for the province this weekend as their junior side start their interprovincial campaign against holders Ulster.
After announcing his retirement from inter-county hurling last November, Walsh resumed his rugby career following a 15-year hiatus as he linked up with New Ross RFC again. The club's first team operates in Division 2A of the Leinster Junior League, three flights down from the AIL.
The Leinster junior selectors soon came calling and he's already played a couple of friendly games against the Defence Forces and Suttonians, with outside centre his preferred position.
'It's something completely different,' he says. 'I got to pull on a Leinster jersey and it's nice. It's something I always wanted to do, pull on the Leinster jersey.
'I've been playing rugby since I was five years of age. Obviously I had a 15-year break between when I was 18 and 33 last year, when I got to play again. I didn't think I'd ever get to put on one (a Leinster jersey). But I did and that was nice for me.
'I went back playing with New Ross last October and the game has changed an awful lot. There's an awful lot I've had to learn. It's completely fresh and completely new but really enjoyable. I just really love playing with New Ross.
'I'm just learning how to play the game again. You know the basics but in terms of tactics it has evolved a lot. Fifteen years is a long time. Really enjoying it. With the training I'm doing now it's been upped again. So yeah, learning a lot.'
At 6'5', Walsh has a physique that lends itself to rugby, but he quickly kicks to touch when asked how far he could have made it in the game if it was his number one sport.
'There were different trials and stuff but I was delighted with hurling. I was playing schools hurling with Good Counsel College and that was the kind of rugby finished then.'
Given the success he enjoyed, particularly in the early part of his career, you couldn't say that he made the wrong choice, but Walsh felt his days with Kilkenny had naturally run their course by the end of last year after struggling with injury and no longer being a regular starter.
'I kind of tore the top of my groin off the bone and I was lucky I didn't need surgery. That was last February. I was only back from the club campaign.
'I gave three months rehabbing it and I suppose I was only back near the end of it. If I knew I was going to be starting on the team you might be looking at it differently but I don't think that would have been the case and, look, I gave long enough wearing the Kilkenny jersey and I think it was time just to step aside.'
He also became a father just before announcing his retirement as his wife Vicky gave birth to twins, Charlie and Kate.
'So they were born just at the end of October, the 29th of October, and the first couple of months, sure I knew Kilkenny were back training and you're up every three hours feeding them at that stage and you're kind of saying, 'I wouldn't be able to be an inter-county hurler now'.
'But then, since I'd say January they're sleeping great and everything like that but there was definitely times when I was thinking, I don't know could I even do it if I wanted. Everyone gets through that.
'That could have been only a couple of nights like that really. Now they're sleeping the night and everything is great as well.'
Walsh will be part of the Bord Gais Energy GAA Legends Tour series at Croke Park this summer and reflected on the 'surreal' experience of making his senior debut there for the 2012 All-Ireland final replay win over Galway, as he scored 1-3 in a man of the match display.
'It's mad. I suppose if someone did it now… it would be hard to think of now, I suppose, that a player could come in, join a panel at that stage and, look, if it never went to a replay it wouldn't have happened either.
'I was on the bench from the quarter-final against Limerick in 2012 so I joined the panel just after that. Galway beat Kilkenny in the Leinster final.
'But I had been in training, making up numbers, I suppose, and I was with the under-21s, Kilkenny under-21s, at the time so yeah, look, it was. It was mad really. Yeah, it was. Getting man of the match.
'But for me at the time, I was just delighted to play for Kilkenny and to play with your heroes, lads you look up to as you're growing up and winning All-Irelands with them. It was mad really.'