Sarsfields manager Vinnie Walsh remains passionate about the game

By Cian O’Connell

Twenty-four hours after Jack Coyne hoisted the Sam Maguire at Croke Park, the party was well and truly continuing in Castlebar. Call it what you like – a homecoming, an explosion, a magical Monday in the wild west.

In Newbridge, Vinnie Walsh - Mayo to the core - was getting ready for training as manager with Sarsfields. That is where he needed to be. Walsh – Mayo to the core - wanted to share the joy. Pure and simple.

Before moving to Kildare, Walsh had been involved in various coaching and managerial roles with Mayo underage teams, and at St Colman’s Claremorris where several of the victorious green and red panel attended.

Sarsfields’ 2026 mission was etched in Walsh’s mind. “I got such a lift from the Mayo win, that I just wanted to go to Sarsfields to tell the boys what it meant to me - Mayo winning,” Walsh explains.

“I knew some of the players and what it meant to us Mayo people, how we wanted it so much. I went up that day to the gym, we call it The Hub, before and I started talking for five minutes. When I start talking, it's usually more than five minutes.

“I spoke from the heart that day about what that Mayo victory meant. How it was all about belief, just wanting it so much - how everyone got behind them. There was no place I wanted to be more than out on a training pitch, training for something we were trying to achieve.

“It gave me great hope and belief. I think that fed into the players - that day when I spoke. We'd a bit of a lift since then, that we could do this. A bit like Mayo, we could just believe in ourselves and go do it.”

So much in sport is simply about belief. Walsh steered Athy to Kildare SFC glory in 2020. In 2024 he took over Sarsfields. Last year, he watched admiringly as Athy gleaned silverware. “Momentum is everything,” Walsh says. “Athy won it. They just got on a roll, the momentum they had for five or six weeks. They got all the way to a Leinster final.

“Before that, it looked like they'd get knocked out in Kildare. Then, they just picked up momentum. We talked a lot about that this year. With the split season, the club season is quite long because the leagues are on early and you've breaks in the summer.

“We said, maybe we were getting it wrong, so we really just focused that if we hit the ground running for championship and keep that momentum building that we'd put all our focus this year into the championship. You could sense it, that we came at the right time, and that does just build. The weeks fly by when you're winning.”

A secondary school teacher at Cross and Passion College, Walsh knows the value and relevance of embracing challenges and tests. Saturday’s televised tussle against Cuala in the AIB Leinster Club SFC at Parnell Park has intrigue attached. “Cuala are a top team, but we love this challenge,” he responds.

“If you don't go out to have a go at this one, Cuala will put you to bed. That's the long and the short of it. You've to bring the belief you have, the momentum you have, and just have a right go at it.

“If you go out any other way in the provincial championships, the level of the county winning teams, especially teams like Cuala, with the experience behind them of winning an All-Ireland, you can't go out there being cagey. You’ve to believe in yourself, have a go, and that's what we plan to do.”

Just under a decade ago, Walsh and his family moved from Mayo to Kildare. Football opened up possibilities. “That's exactly it,” Walsh reflects.

“We came here with our two little girls. Over beside her family, we said this is where we'd bring them up. I remember coming over, I'd been heavily involved in Colman's football, the Mayo minors, and was still playing.

“So, it was six or seven days a week, maybe I was even getting burnt out. I came over here and remember saying, I'll buy the golf clubs because nobody knows me over here.

“Football is such a small world. I wasn't here two months, the next thing I got a phone call from a man, saying we heard you moved over to this side of the country, would you come down to do a bit of coaching with us.

“I ended up being with Athy for five or six years and then over to Sarsfields here. It's just the best way to mix with people, football people like me, it's just a community.

“I thought when I moved over that you wouldn't have that connection, but it's actually the same. The football community is massive. You'd have contacts now all over the place. It's a great way to build yourself into a community.”

Family and friends travel from Mayo to watch the teams Walsh manages in action. “Every club is different and every county is different,” he says.

“It's gas, I've so many friends back home and brothers. We all follow Mayo and love Mayo football. When they come up to watch the club football in Kildare, the standard is so high. There is so much to learn when you go into different places.

“The standard of club football and the players in Kildare, there is any amount of them with the population. It's amazing then, the belief over in Mayo that they can win All-Irelands.

“Whoever wins the junior or intermediate or senior in Kildare, they can go a long way towards winning a Leinster club title.

“It's really interesting, the different styles of football and everything. Just to be able to bring what I had over in Mayo to here. It's about belief and I think togetherness goes an awful long way.”

Vinnie Walsh always loved football. Still does. Coaching and managing in St Colman’s, Claremorris proved to be a rewarding time. “When I started teaching first, Boyler (Colm Boyle) was there,” Walsh recalls.

“There are only a few years between us, I went straight out of Colman's and straight back in. He's only a few years behind me, I remember him and a few boys like him and Enda Varley.

“Then, we'd Stevie Coen, some great lads, Shane Nally, and Enda Hession. He'd have been in the last group I coached in Colman's. I wasn't there when Darragh Beirne and Eoin McGreal came through it.

“I went to watch them in Croke Park a few years ago, it was unreal to see. Such a small school, when you compare it to schools over here around the place. To be getting to Hogan Cup finals, it just proves it's in our blood over there, we just love it.”

Being involved in a couple of successful Connacht Colleges campaigns mattered deeply to Walsh. “We lost two Hogan Cup semi-finals,” Walsh says.

“We lost one to a very, very good Edenderry team. They'd Paul Cribbin and Seán Hurley. That was a great game. We'd Shane Nally and some lovely players on that team; they bet us by a few points. Emmet McDonnell was over them. That was a great game of football.

“Then, in my last year we actually lost to Brendan's Killarney, who were going for three in a row Hogans. Another great game in Limerick in 2017. They were the two Hogan Cup semi-finals, I'd have loved to have got to a Hogan Cup final with them.

“I was delighted to manage Colman's for so many years and win a few Connacht titles. It was such a place to learn my trade and get into coaching.”

When Walsh moved to Kildare, he became immersed in club football in his new county. “I came over here, by pure luck, I think John Prenty told someone I was moving over,” Walsh says. “A phone call came quickly, and I'd great years in Athy. It was a great learning place.

“I went into Athy in 2018 under Emmanuel Kennedy, we got to a county final that year, we lost. As manager, in 2020, the Covid year, we won that. I stayed on, we lost two semi-finals. At the end it was time to move on. I felt we should've won another one or two.

“A new set of eyes was needed in the dressing room, in case I was missing something. I'd five or six great years with Athy. Then I went to Sarsfields. The plan was to take a break, but you're not in the door when the call came from Sarsfields.

“Since I moved up, they were a team I heard about. I didn't know much about Kildare football. They were changing managers, with Athy we beat them in the Championship. Then, it came. I've a great friend next door, John Doran, who was in Athy with me.

“He said would you go in; they need someone to bring it all back together. I wondered what it would be like if we gave it a few years, to try to put something together. The first year was difficult, but the last two years it has really come together. It's a really good club.”

The most prolific winners of the Kildare SFC, Sarsfields are blessed with tradition and talent. “There is an expectation,” Walsh says. “That can help you and it can go against you.

“It can help you when you get on a roll. I always find that the expectation and tradition of clubs that are used to winning, when you get on a roll, the belief comes back very quick.

“On the opposite side, when you're not winning, it can get on top of you. It's that rollercoaster run. We got on a good run this year. The belief started to build.

“Then, you can see the supporters coming in behind us. That's when it kicks in, the tradition of the club, as a winning club. I had the other feeling of it last year when we didn't win. It works both ways. This year, we definitely got on a bit of a roll and it just took off.”

A trip to Donnycarney beckons on Saturday. Another difficult mission Walsh hopes to accomplish.