Joe Walshe looks back at 1977 Carlow Towns Cup win

In 1977 Carlow beat Athy 9-6 in the Provincial Towns Cup final. It wouldn’t have been the first or the last time the sides would meet. Carlow also won when the sides met twelve years earlier (1965) coming out on top by the same score. Athy bounced back in 1978 beating the Curragh in the decider. Three years later, revenge was sweet when Athy beat Carlow 8-3 in the final.

The County Kildare team last won the Towns Cup in 1984 while Carlow amassed five Leinster pennants in the 1990s. In 2002, with the first team playing in the All-Ireland League, Carlow seconds made it to a final but were heavily beaten by Kilkenny. Since then neither Carlow nor Athy have even been in a final.

The rivalry between the clubs back in the seventies and eighties was intense. Particularly in Carlow, there is somewhat of an aura still around the 1977 final.

Joe Walsh, who played in the centre that day, has vivid memories of the whole year. At the time, the Carlow intercounty footballer was mixing gaelic football with rugby and doing it ultra-successfully. He won three senior football championship titles (1975, 1979 and 1981) with Tinryland captaining them to victory in 1981. In 1977 he still remembers playing gaelic football for Carlow when the national league was played into the winter of 1977 and resumed again the following year.

“The national football league would have started in October. You would be playing matches up to December. The second part would be played after Christmas. I would often end up playing a rugby match and a football match that evening. You wouldn’t do it today. I was able to manage both at the time. The same pressure wasn’t on players to choose one over the other. I was able to play both,” he recalls.

The 1976-77 rugby season seemed to be following the same routine of previous years where Carlow were not considered. League form had been patchy before Christmas. Not even contemplating that Carlow would be in the final, the Leinster Branch fixed the 1977 Provincial Towns Cup final for Carlow.

It is a mistake that has not been repeated to this day.

As the first round of the Towns Cup approached, the eventual winners went about their business in a professional manner in a way which had never been done before. It was something like the perfect storm where Noel Quaid, the captain, player and coach the late Tom Darcy and a group of ambitious players all arrived at the same point at the one time. Joe Walshe has no doubt Quaid and Darcy had magnetic personalities.

“I always felt Noel Quaid was a great character. He got the best out of lads. Quaid was a messer but once you went into the dressing room, with Noel Quaid’s and Darcy’s influence, the messing was over. When the match was over then, Quaid would turn back to his real self. He brought huge discipline to training. Himself and Darcy,” said Walshe.

The two leaders took no messing from anyone. Players turned up on time for training and for matches. It would be fair to say that more talented players were in the club at the time but not having the commitment they were not considered.

“Certainly if you didn’t train, you didn’t play,” concedes Walshe who said there was a great mix in the team.

“You had older guys as well. Harry Ardill, Gerry Gordon. Roy Elmes and Brian Carbery had a huge influence. Roy was very experienced and could have played at a much higher level if he had wanted to. He played with Leinster juniors and his influence on us younger guys was massive. He would have instilled confidence in younger players. We never felt out of place playing alongside him. He loved the Towns Cup. His nick-name was TC (Towns Cup).” Carlow had some exceptional players in back-rowers John Slattery and John Quirke. Walshe says the balance in the team was perfect.

“Kennedy O’Brien was everywhere. He was phenomenal. He was an extreme athlete. We had two very good lineout men in The Brad (Liam Bradshaw) and Tom Darcy. As a front row, Harry Ardill, Noel Quaid and Gerry Gordon were never beaten. In the backs, Roy Elmes would have been selected on any team and could have gone on and played senior rugby. Mike Murphy was a brilliant scrum-half. Ernie Porter did go on and played senior rugby. He also played for Leinster.

“Willie Fennell was another one who could have played at a very high level. I was lucky enough just to be part of that set-up,” says a modest Walshe.

“All our training pre-Christmas was exceptional and we were extremely fit. We had a couple of older guys, Gerry Gordon, was in his 40s and everyone was exceptionally fit. It had a huge influence when push came to shove. We had that upper hand in regards to fitness. Darcy was ahead of his time regards thinking and his training methods.

“Then you had Brian Carbery who was an exceptional kicker. Penalties were a huge feature of Towns Cup rugby. If you kicked your penalties you won your match. If you didn’t, you were beaten.” 

Carlow drew a fancied Roscrea side at Oak Park in the first round. Holding on to a narrow lead, the home side were under the cosh and holding on grimly. They got an outrageous break when Roscrea drove them over the line but the ball carrier dropped the ball. “Oh f*** it,” came from his mouth. The referee had his hand in the air to award the try. Folklore has it that the match official admitted afterwards he had not seen the knock-on but when the player muttered his expletive the referee knew something had gone wrong. The match official’s arm changed trajectory and pointed to the Carlow 25 for a drop-out. Carlow lived to tell the tale.

“Roy Elmes tackled a guy going over the line and the guy dropped it. That is my memory of it. It is a long time ago,” agreed Walshe.

“I don’t think Roscrea were peeved in any way over that. They knew it wasn’t a try as well.” Carlow beat Drogheda in the second round. Walshe doesn’t remember the score. “Something like 13-6,” the dual player reckons.

Carlow were drawn to play the holders, Tullamore, away from home in the quarter-final. Tom Darcy had won a provincial Towns Cup medal the year before with the Offaly club. One can only imagine how emotional it was for the player who had such an influence over his native club and now was plotting to deprive them of their Provincial Towns Cup.

Carlow came through narrowly. A tight one score game. Again Walshe is not certain but he thinks it was “something like 6-3”. Carlow beat Arklow in the semi-final in another tight game in Wexford. They were heading back to their own ground to play in a Provincial Towns Cup final.

“Carlow had always treated the Towns Cup with such prestige. They were treated and respected as a Towns Cup team. A lot of ex-players were part of the build-up and would always be around the club on training nights and weekends,” said Walshe.

Then there was the surprise factor when Carlow were not expected to do well. “Now, here in the month of April, we were in the final, not having had a wonderful pre-Christmas. Here we were playing our near neighbours, Athy. It was an added bonus having two local teams and we were playing on our own home pitch. That was a great bonus for us,” recalled Walshe.

In the final, the Tinryland man kicked, what he would describe as a no-hoper long-range penalty. Carbery made it 6-0 with a closer in one. Johnny Miller halved the deficit with a penalty for Athy. With time running out he kicked the leveller to bring the game to extra-time.

After that, the Athy kicker missed two kicks and just when it looked as if it was going to finish level Carbery landed the winner for Carlow.

Walshe will never forget that day.

“It was brilliant. To win on our home pitch, in front of your home crowd was brilliant. It was a close-knit crowd. A lot of lads hung around together and got on well together. Being beaten in a South East final before Christmas and to go on and win a Towns Cup was all the sweeter,” he says.