Thomastown camogie manager Ger Walsh continues to cut an optimistic figure when it comes to matters camogie.
Having led Thomastown to a senior county title in Kilkenny this year – two titles in the last three years – Walsh watched on as a strong St. Vincent’s side made goals count on Saturday to send the Kilkenny champions out of Leinster. St. Vincent’s will now go on to play Oulart The Ballagh in this year’s provincial senior decider on Sunday.
Despite the loss, Walsh is taking a lot of positives from the season.
“We set out at the start of the year, a lot was made of players gone travelling or gone off to work abroad and they were huge losses. But we said we still had players who were capable of winning a county final and that proved to be if we set about things correctly”, he told Scoreline in the wake of Saturday’s defeat in Dublin.
“The future is bright for Thomastown. Coming off the back of the pandemic like that, as we said during the summer an awful lot of girls went on holidays which you have to do. You have to keep your head right mentally, you have to keep yourself right but I mean there’s a lot of good girls coming through.
“The future is bright for camogie in general in Kilkenny when you look around a lot of the other clubs as well. But Thomastown will be up there, there or thereabouts again next year, we just maybe need to push on. I just hope there’s no more retirements or talk of retirements but you never know.”
While ten players have been put forward for the senior team of the year selection, Thomastown will be guaranteed at least one award out of the Camán Caint Player of the Year awards with Joanne Fitzpatrick, Sarah Walsh and Anna Farrell all in the running for this year’s Senior Player of the Year. Voting in that continues on scoreline.ie this week with winners announced at a special event at the beginning of December.
James Stephens remain in Leinster competition with a provincial club intermediate semi-final against St. Brigid’s of Laois. That game throws in at 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon at the Kells Road.
