Tommy Walsh is one of the most decorated hurlers of all-time, but yesterday's Kilkenny IHC triumph with his beloved Tullaroan was possibly the sweetest success of them all.

Now in the twilight of his career after winning nine All-Ireland SHC medals with the Cats and the same amount of All Stars, Walsh showed he still has it by scoring 1-2 in Tullaroan's 3-18 to 0-21 victory over Thomastown at UPMC Nowlan Park. The success atoned for Tullaroan's league final defeat to the same opponents and for countless disappointments they have suffered during the course of Walsh's career.

In an emotional interview with former GAA president Nickey Brennan afterwards, Walsh spoke of his delight at being able to share this success with his club:

"The Tullaroan people went through some suffering over the years with hurling, sports-wise I'm talking about. They've had big losses after big losses. We were on a great Kilkenny team and we were winning the whole time," he said.

The legend Tommy Walsh #tullaroan ⁦@KilkennyCLG⁩ pic.twitter.com/BqEyxwWFSi

— Alan Cantwell (@alanrantwell) October 27, 2019

"But this team had to come back after getting bet after bet, throwing away leads. We just stayed going and going. We said we were going to die or we were going to win a county final. And thank God we won the county final.

"For years I was celebrating with Kilkenny and the Tullaroan people were great to me. They backed me up, this and that. But I wanted to share something with them that we could share together. I've never had that in my whole adult life. I could never share victory with Tullaroan.

"Thank God for today. We're going to share it for the whole winter and we'll knuckle down and we'll try and do well in Leinster."

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