Walsh burst into the international spotlight when he won a bronze medal at the world indoor championships earlier this month.
He then broke the New Zealand outdoor record when he threw 21.65m in Melbourne last weekend.
Gill has won world youth and junior titles in the event but now has to make his mark as a senior thrower.
His best distance with the senior 7.26kg shot is 20.05kg.
Walsh has already beaten the Commonwealth Games standard of 20.60m for Edinburgh and Gill will be keen to join the club tomorrow afternoon.
The pendulum has shifted away from middle and long-distance events in which New Zealand athletes used to make their mark on the international scene.
The throwing events now top the bill in New Zealand athletics and the main public focus will be on these events.
World and Olympic champion Valerie Adams is expected to win her 13th senior women's shot put title and fellow Olympian Stuart Farquhar will be chasing his 14th javelin title.
The throwing events also give Otago athletes the best chance of winning national titles.
Four-time champion Marshall Hall will be attempting to regain the national men's discus title he lost to Walsh last year when he finished third. His comeback started in December when he broke Robin Tait's 47-year-old Otago senior men's discus record with a throw of 57.06m.
He will win his fifth title comfortably if he throws to form.
Tori Peeters is 7m ahead of her nearest rival in the women's javelin and is expected to regain the women's under-20 and senior women's titles she lost last year.
She broke the New Zealand aged 19 and 20 records with her throw of 52.83m in the Porritt Classic last month.
The Commonwealth Games qualifying standard is beyond her at the moment but Kirsten Hellier's 15-year-old national senior women's record of 54.19m is within her sights. Defending national champion Daniel O'Shea is ranked third and will find it difficult to retain his senior men's 400m hurdles title.
O'Shea (25) has a best time of 50.57sec this year and sits behind Waikato Bay of Plenty hurdlers Michael Cochrane 49.72sec and Cameron French 50.39sec. He holds the Otago record at 50.16sec.
O'Shea is also ranked third in the 400m with his time of 47.40sec.
A feature of this event is the return of three-time national champion Cory Innes (29) to the Otago team. He won the title from 2006 to 2008.
Defending under-20 champion Robert Jopp is only ranked third with his season's best time of 49.06sec.
At the national championships in Wellington last year, Otago athletes won 27 medals - nine gold, eight silver and 10 bronze.
Rozie Robinson is recovering from an operation and will find it difficult to retain her 3km and 20km senior women's walking titles.
Maddy Spence is ranked first in the women's under-18 300m hurdles with a time of 46.17sec.
AWD athletes Anna Grimaldi, Rory McSweeney and Holly Robinson are expected to add to Otago's gold medal count.
Other Otago athletes with a chance of reaching the podium are Christina Ashton (women's under-18 100m hurdles), Joe Beamish (men's under-20 5000m), Sian English (women's under-20 1500m and 5000m), Adriana Mawhinney (women's under-18 high jump and triple jump), Meg McKay (women's under-20 high jump), Sam Porter (men's under-20 javelin) and Bradley Tarleton (men's under-18 hammer throw).
