One for the future
November 27, 2011The Monaghan v Down Ulster SFC match at Casement Park in the summer of 2003 proved to be an abbatoir for a host of ambitions.
However, for some fans in attendance in the Belfast bowl that day, a thousand memories were born.
Stellar displays at half-time in the senior match fevered a hundred dreams. An inspiring vista was presented to those of a white and blue hue.
What might have been a common-or-garden juvenile football exhibition at half-time to some was a confection of pride and nostalgia to others.
For the Walshe clan from Doohamlet, the afternoon gave a rising star in their household his first major audience.
Observers relay how 12 year old Colin Walshe had a blinder that day, playing for the Monaghan primary schools representative side with an enervating impishness. His was a consuming omnipresence around the field and his head-up play, hoovering up of possession and his raids up and down the field had even the Mourne county fans sitting up and taking notice.
Over the years, gaels in Doohamlet have witnessed how the young, fair-haired artisan of yesteryear has since morphed into a mature artist.
It's as if Paddy the plasterer has added Michealangelo-esque skills to his repetoire and the club and county scene in Monaghan are all the more colourful and vibrant as a result.
Colin Walshe is being touted by many astute, seasoned football observers as the future of Monaghan football.
An authorative defender who plays with marauding aggression. As unrelenting as granite and with his heart permanently on his sleeve, Hughes has the tactical astuteness to be county boss Eamonn McEneaney's general-on-the-field.
Even though he is still only 21, his capacity to organise and galvanise players around him is telling. He's Doohamlet's dynamo.
He's not only appreciated by the O'Neills, of course. He received the 2010 Young Player of the Year award.
He captained Monaghan to the Ulster and All-Ireland Vocational Schools titles in 2009 - equalling the achievements of club mates Ted Duffy and Niall Connolly in that regard.
He was called into the senior county panel the following year and quickly assumed the aura of a lord to the manor born.
One of the finest county under 21 players of recent times, he made his senior county debut in a vital National Football League victory over Tyrone in the spring of 2010.
Needless to say, he was a central figure on the Doohamlet club team that clinched the county Intermediate Football Championship title last year.
A few weeks after the county final, he featured at centre-back on the team that lost out at Kingspan/Breffni Park by 1-7 to 0-13 to Lisnaskea in the Ulster club IFC final to Lisnaskea.
At colleges level, he has won an All-Ireland Freshers medal with Dubling Institute of Technology and starred for them in their Sigerson Cup odyssey.
Fair-haired Walshe is one of the success stories spawned by the county development squad system in Monaghan.
Right from the time he first graduated to the under 14 county development squad, his star has been rocketing skywards.
Colin's participation in his first ever county development squad came at a time when the system was only in its infancy and was barely two years in-the-cooking.
While reflecting on the benefits of having come up through the development squad system, young Walshe has often remarked how his experience in times past with his peers at underage level was a big help to his football career.
It seems the experience garnered by him from being involved with under 14, 15 and 16 county development squads instilled in the aspiring Walshe a greater sense of self-confidence and belief as well as ambition.
It seems also that such a system provides the likes of the Doohamlet star with very good preparation work and experience ahead of their elevation onto county minor squads.
Playing against different players from different clubs and counties proved great experience for the teenage Walshe and he has built on that experience in rich terms.
A former mentor remarked: "I suppose being involved in the development squads gave Colin and the rest of the county lads an insight into what it takes to beat the best of what the other counties are producing at underage.
"Some of those games he would have been involved in, especially at under 16 level, were very challenging matches and a real step-up from the club matches and showed him and his team-mates the sort of standards they needed to aspire to.
"There's no doubt the coaching he got with the development squads helped to complement the work that was done with him at Doohamlet."
Friends say his performances on the field as a teenager owed much to the tips and advice he received from an array of coaches like Cathal Hand, Seamus Meehan and Eamon O'Hara.
He has since consistently demonstrated his natural talent and the improvement in his game - courtesy of the excellent coaching he has received at club and county level down the years - continues in leaps and bounds.
An Electrical Engineering student, Walshe has stated on several occasions to the local media that he couldn't over-estimate the degree of importance attached to his formative years in a Monaghan jersey.
"I think the fact that he was given the opportunity to put a county jersey on so early in his football career really made him even more determined to do as well as he could in the game," a club mate opines.
"Playing against different players from different clubs and counties has obviously been great experience for him, especially when he was adding to his game in his early teens.
"Representing your county at a young age only increases your ambition and confidence and Colin is the kind who'd want to have more of the same."
Team-mates say the experience Colin garnered from being involved with under 14, 15 and 16 county development squads seemed to instill in him a particular sense of self-confidence and belief as well as ambition.
At 16 he was handed his senior debut with Doohamlet by then manager Dessie McBennett.
His performances against quality players in the Buncrana Cup (with the county under 16s) saw him catch the eye of even the most seasoned observers.
Most significantly, it arguably gave him and his team-mates an insight into what it takes to beat the best of what the other counties were producing at the time at underage level.
Slowly but surely, Doohamlet's young gun was aping the way Tyrone players and other teams like Armagh and Down, at underage level, were playing i.e with a lot of confidence and a kind of a swagger.
Walshe and his peers began to look just as comfortable on the ball as their opponents from the rest of Ulster.
As Monaghan got on a par with the other top rated counties in Ulster - where development squads or coaching is concerned - Walshe found himself increasingly surrounded by quality players and his own game benefited hugely as a result.
A member of the Monaghan minor team which lost out to Tyrone in the 2008 Ulster MFC decider, the suddeness of his elevation to senior county ranks might have greatly surprised him but not to his coaches and to a slew of club and county supporters.
Son of former Doohamlet player Martin and mother Marie (nee McGarrell), Colin was a big loss to the Monaghan seniors in Tullamore last summer when they bowed out of the All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers.
His absence was due to injury as he picked up a hamstring injury after Tyrone (where he did well on Martin Penrose) had confined Monaghan to the backdoor system.
Those closest to him say that having to play three games in ten games after the O'Neill county defeat was a decisive factor in aggravating the muscle.
As a result of his injury, he didn't play again 'till the SFC clash with Latton at the end of July, some five weeks after the injury first flared up.
Having performed admirably in all of Monaghan's NFL matches, Colin's championship innings were a real source of disappointment.
The Doohamlet stalwart has come up through the ranks with such other luminaries as Kieran Hughes, Dermot Malone and Christopher McGuinness and looks set to be a fixture on Monaghan senior teams for many moons to come.
Relegation with his club this year hurt him badly, friends say but he is determined to help lead the O'Neills back to the promised land.
They say his ambition to win things with Monaghan seniors remains undiminished.
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