‘It was a cry of relief more than anything’

Intercountry players across the country have had to bide their time to return to training with their panels. For Grace Walsh of Kilkenny, that wait has been a bit longer.

The 2018 All Star has emerged as one of the leading lights in the sport, though the pain of falling short in last year’s deciding match, his fourth such loss in six years, will help fuel another challenge to win the Cup. O’Duffy.

For the Dublin-based nurse, after a very enjoyable club season with Tullaroan, the return to Kilkenny was limited due to Covid-19.

Walsh, a clinical nurse at St Vincent Hospital, was considered a close contact and forced into isolation for a fortnight, only returning to inter-county training last week before this weekend’s first championship game against Waterford.

Initial discomfort gave way to consolation that his cautious approach had not endangered anyone regardless of the test result.

“When I got the call to say it was a close contact, when I hung up the call, I started crying,” he tells RTÉ Sport at the 2020 Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Camogie Championship launch. “It was a cry of relief more than anything. I get emotional even thinking about it.

“The only person I was in contact with was my housemate. When I hung up the phone, I was so relieved that I had not been in contact with anyone else. That is what is so important.

“I knew I wouldn’t regret it if I tested positive for Covid. I wasn’t really worried about myself. I had no symptoms. I didn’t know my results at the time.

“I thought, ‘What if I had been in contact with my parents? What if I met a group of friends?’

“You don’t want to have that regret. I promise you there will be no worse feeling than putting someone else at risk.”

I returned to work as a nurse after 2 weeks of isolation after close contact with COVID19 related to WORK and now I find that I am not entitled to sick pay from my employer during the time I HAD to take off. # COVID-19 @LeoVaradkar @MichealMartinTD @HSELive @paulreiddublin @DonnellyStephen

– Grace Walsh (@ GraceWalsh1) October 8, 2020

Walsh posted on social media her frustration over the situation where nurses are not getting sick pay for forced time off due to work-related Covid contact tracing.

While the advocate did not expand on that sentiment further, she did offer insight into her life experience on the front line.

“Right before Covid came, I was very, very busy. I work in a surgery room and we have a high dependency unit in our room. She is always extremely busy.

“But in the lockdown, when cases were at an all-time high, I really enjoyed the work. I can only speak from my own personal experience, but we got a lot of support at St Vincents Hospital. Weeks.

“We were taking care of the less sick patients. I saw the good side that people went from being sick to being Covid positive and going home.”

The flip side of the pandemic, at least in a sports context, has been the renewed focus on the club scene.

Not having to serve two masters was a welcome relief for all intercountry players who could focus on local issues, rather than national ones.

Walsh is emphatic when asked how it felt to focus only on Tullaroan during the summer months.

“The club was scandalous,” he says. “I’ve never enjoyed my experience at the club so much. We didn’t get to where we wanted to be, we got knocked out in the quarterfinals, but it was really nice playing with the girls you’ve grown up with.”

We really come together as a team, as a club and as a community.

Having her cousin and teammate between counties Miriam Walsh only increased the satisfaction.

“For Miriam and me, for the last four years, we’ve played an Irish final on a Sunday and then you go out and are expected to play with the club the following Sunday, probably without training with them for seven or eight months. Can you expect a team to join or get used to playing together when we don’t train together?

“We really come together as a team, as a club and as a community.”

He has also highlighted the difference in psyche he has had at times in relation to playing for the club and the county.

A key figure in the Cats rearguard who reached another decisive game from all over Ireland last year, Walsh felt his own performances were a bit below par. The pandemic, and playing for the club, has perhaps shed a little more light on the possible reason.

“I felt that trust was something very important. With the club, you are so free. You don’t push yourself and I don’t know why.

“Sometimes when you go into a cross-county setup, you can lose that confidence. It’s amazing to think that a team that can reach an Ireland final every year can be lacking in confidence individually. It’s something that I would seek to improve and would have received help in that sense “.

It will be a unique 9 week championship in many ways. Five key games during the group stage will be streamed online, meaning that along with RTÉ’s coverage from the quarter-final stage, each round will be available for fans to watch.

Whatever happens on the court for Kilkenny this year, whether or not Walsh gets his hands on the O’Duffy Cup in December or not, he says Covid-19 has given him a little perspective on why he plays the game.

“We have had a lot of time to reflect on previous years [final defeats]and what will happen now and in the future. What I have come to realize is why I play camouflage.

“It’s just that I love playing, win or lose. I really learned it this year playing for my club.

“We have to learn not to push ourselves when we hit the last hurdle.”