Is it seven titles or is it eight? Brian Carroll takes a moment to ponder, “I think it’s eight, in fact I’m nearly certain, but now I’m doubting myself.”
It is eight, and this week he’s vying for softball doubles title number nine, but the momentary uncertainty is indicative of Carroll’s life at present.
Father to a six-month old daughter, handball has taken a back seat in the Carroll household. “It’s great, and I love it, but it’s a massive change in your life. You can’t just do what you want to anymore, everything revolves around her,” he says.
Of course, the Carrolls are far from being the only ones to welcome new faces to the family, and Brian is well aware that his situation is anything but unique.
“In fact, we’re quite lucky as she’s a great little sleeper. We put her down about nine and she generally sleeps right through to about seven or eight. We definitely can’t complain, but I’m not getting too cocky and thinking I’ve got this parenting sussed. That can all change.”
Not that Carroll’s training pattern has varied widely from recent years. Long gone is the gym work and heavy running of his early career.
“I don’t have the motivation to train quite as hard as I would’ve before, or maybe as I should, but I just love the competition and the buzz of competing, so that’s what drives me. I know even if I haven’t trained that hard, I’ll still give it my all and be very competitive.
“But I still really love the game, and I love to play handball. I did love the gym work and the running at one stage, but now I just love to play games for training.”
And the new approach is paying off. Having cut his teeth as Tom Sheridan’s wingman in the Senior Doubles, Carroll grew into an equal partner before becoming arguably the more important cog in the partnership as his cool head, killer instinct and kamikaze-like disregard for his body made Carroll one of handball’s all-time greatest right side players.
So much so, that following Sheridan’s retirement in 2017, Carroll returned last year with a wingman of his own, Gary McConnell, and provided the steadying influence and experience as the Senior Softball Doubles title went back to the Royal county once more.
A year on, and in the freshly minted Westmeath pairing of Robbie McCarthy and Colm Jordan, McConnell and Carroll face different opposition on handball’s grandest stage.
“Last year [versus Eoin Kennedy and Carl Browne] there was so much pressure on us given the Dublin rivalry and that our clubman was involved [Browne had defected to Dublin in 2015] and on Gary in particular as Carl is his uncle, and to come out the right side of it and for Gary to play so well in his first final will really stand to him.
“Obviously it’s a different challenge this year as Robbie and Eoin have different strengths, as do Colm and Carl, so we’d be foolish if we were preparing with exactly the same tactics, but it’s not something that you can dwell on too much. At the end of the day, you have to play to your strengths as well.”
In McCarthy, Carroll faces perhaps his oldest rival and one of his closest friends.
“Myself and Robbie have grown up together, played in almost every underage final, but we’ve never played each other in a senior final. But we’d be in regular contact and would play a lot of training games together. I was talking to him the day after we both got through to the final and we were talking about the game a bit, but then it kind of got quiet and we were like, ‘okay, I’ll see you on Saturday then so’.”
The contest between the Royal County and the Lake County will bring the curtain down on 50 years of handball at Ceannáras, but though Carroll spent most of his 20s living in Dublin and training at handball HQ, sentiment is in short supply for the Kells man.
“I guess it would be great to be able to look back and say you won the final title at Croke Park, but in the lead up to the game, it’s not something that would have any real relevance for us. You just have to focus on the job at hand.”
And the job at hand? Is that winning title eight or tile nine? “No, it’d be nine, it would definitely be nine.”
Focus restored. On to Saturday then so…