By Paul Fitzpatrick
No sooner had he eased through the underage ranks laden with medals than, it appeared, his career was over.
When Seamus O'Carroll's shoulder packed in just after he won the World U23 doubles in 2012 and work subsequently took him to the UK, it seemed as if one of the brightest young talents of his generation would be lost to handball.
Fast forward four years and O'Carroll, a former All-Ireland Minor Softball Singles champion, is back. A trainee Garda in Templemore, the former Limerick footballer returned to the alley a few months ago.
Keen observers around Tipperary will have spotted him, if they looked hard enough, turning the car for Thurles to put in the lonely hours perfecting his touch, regaining that sharpness and, more than anything, building up that shoulder he first blew out way back in 2009 in Portland, Oregon.
“I was looking after it with physio and taking cortisone injections to try to get me through but six weeks before the World Championships in 2012, the whole shoulder broke down,” O'Carroll explained to GAAHandball.ie this week.
“I got another injection into it but that was the last injection I could get in it before the operation had to happen.”
An eight-month spell in London followed before he finally went under the knife in 2014.
“It was a bit of an eye-opener to me, I was told by the surgeon in Santry that I had a 60-year-old woman's shoulder! It was crazy, he was very, very surprised, the scans didn't show everything that was wrong until he actually went in and opened it up and could see. He said that it was in a bad state.
“He cleared everything out of it and stitched it up so hopefully it's going to hold. But I did a very good rehab with Barry Heffernan in Limerick, he's a top-class physio and he brought me through everything and I followed his routine for about nine months.
The shoulder feels good, now it's still getting weak when I play and during games it fatigues in the middle of games where I have to rest it and try and go again because I lose my power.”
His aim, all along, has been a return to the business end of the Senior Championship.
“This is the first time I've really been back, I said I'd use the big court to try and build back up the shoulder and use it as training to see could I get back competing. I said to myself if I'm not going to get back up competing where I think I should be or where I was before then there's no point competing at all. Psychologically, I'd only be driving myself mad.”
So far, then, so good. After an opening win over Offaly left-hander David Hope, he improved again next time out in beating Ger Coonan 21-11, 21-12 in an eye-catching result which he admitted even caught himself by surprise.
“Ger had performed well in the Munster Senior Singles, he should have beaten CJ [Fitzpatrick] in Ballymac, and I didn't know what to expect when I went down to play him although I felt like I had been getting better with each game after Dominick beat me in the Munster semi-final.
“Ger is a decent player but I just performed well on the day which surprised me and surprised everyone that was with me. I was delighted with it because Ger got to the semi-final in the big court last year.”
O'Carroll, who turns 26 this year, was out of football for a year and a half and while he's regarded as one of the best attackers in the Treaty County (landing 2-4 from play in last year's Junior A final for Cappagh), handball has always been number one.
“My first focus was getting the shoulder right so I can get back playing handball. When you're out of it for so long and you can see the different names creeping up and doing well and you knew you were competing and there or thereabouts, you miss it.”
Regardless of how this championship culminates for him, Seamus is planning to compete in the 40x20 at the tail end of the year. For him, there's no difference between the various codes, although he's a little concerned about where 60x30 is headed.
“I think 60x30 is a great game during the summer whereas 40x20 does drag on a bit, there are a lot more tournaments. But softball and hardball, they're savage games. 60x30 doubles is probably the best game to watch, when you have two top class sets of doubles like Tom Sheridan and Brian Carroll or Eoin Kennedy and Carl Browne or Dessie Keegan and Joe McCann against each other, they're great games to watch.
“It's just probably not as appealing to young lads to play them for some reason. One Wall is a lot more attractive and easier to play.”
What, though, can be done to improve the lot of the 'big alley' code?
“I did a questionnaire and I was saying that the Basque country was a good trip when it was there and it might make it more appealing because there are a lot of lads there in a lot of age groups who specifically stick to small court. It's hard to know what to do really with the big court because when you've One Wall taking over, it's a lot easier to play.
“Even just the Senior Championship alone, the amount of walkovers in it because of who people get in the draw, it can make a bit of a farce of the draw.
“There is the GPA for the likes of the footballers and hurlers and there's nothing there for handball, it used to be there years ago when you had the Irish Sports Council supporting what they called the elite handballers, that's not there now but it might be an avenue to get more interest for young lads to play big court if they were classified as athlete players in that too.
“But then there are a lot more 40x20 clubs than 60x30 clubs, in some counties you might have an hour or and hour and a half's drive just to train.”
The curfew – student Gardaí must be back at base by midnight – hasn't been ideal for training and competing but that has eased since O'Carroll moved off campus. He'll be busy with the football commitments – he reckons the guards have a solid side for the 2017 Sigerson – but, for now, his entire focus is on this Saturday's tussle with Carl Browne in Crinkle in the Senior Singles quarter-final.
“I played David Hope and got through that and played well against Ger so I'm hoping to keep it going. As I said, I was only using this as a kind of 'testing the water' type of year to see how the shoulder would hold up and would I be able to get back competing.
“Carl went up senior a couple of years before I did and we've never crossed paths in singles. Since I dropped out of the game, he's won a couple of senior All-Irelands so I'm expecting a tough game, there will be nothing easy against him.
“I have a good fitness base from the training here and from the club football; it was hard to get lads to train with locally so I have been going to Thurles and training on my own a lot just to practise shots and getting used to striking the ball again and getting the shoulder used to repetitive strain and stress again.
“I'm looking forward to Saturday, I know the prize at the end of it is getting to go back to Croke Park for a semi-final which would be a massive game as well but I'm not looking past this weekend.”
