By Paul Fitzpatrick
After years of being handball’s best supporting actor, Charly Shanks finally earned the plaudits as leading man last year. His stunning All-Ireland Senior Singles final win over Robbie McCarthy saw him ascend to the throne at long, long last.
Heavy, though, is the crown. Fast forward 12 months and Shanks is now the hunted, not the hunter – not that he chooses to dwell on the role reversal.
“I’m not thinking about that, I just want to win another one. That’s why I’m there. I feel like I’ve prepared well enough to win on the day,” Shanks said at today’s launch in Croke Park.
Shanks survived a stern test against Clare’s Diarmaid Nash in last weekend’s semi-final in a slugfest which went the distance – two hours and 40 minutes of toe to toe action. On commentary, four-time champion Tony Healy remarked that Shanks was “playing his way into the contest” and Healy’s canny analysis, more than anything, speaks to the Lurgan man’s experience.
Experience, they say, is the teacher of all things and Shanks has seen it all, sucked up the bad days and savoured the good ones. Each of them – losing finals, winning them - taught him lessons. He knows now how to adjust to the rhythm of the match, how to hear the music quickening but not get swept away with the beat.
“The more games, the more of those situations you have been involved in, you can see it coming, you can see it developing, it’s almost like an instinct. You can sense it and you know when the game’s on the line. You’ve seen this before.”
When it comes down to it, a shoot-out, a test of resolve, it’s not just a matter of seeing who can go low and do it most often. It’s more subtle than that, reckons Shanks.
“It’s not that black and white. You’ve just got to play hard,” he says with a shrug.
Players. He’s seen them come and go, too, “played hard” against a whole generation’s worth. Belfast-based for most of his career, Shanks has been operating at the elite end of the sport for a decade and a half now, regularly sparring with the likes of Tyrone’s Ciaran Curran and leading Antrim players Sean Devine, Owen McKenna and Seamus Ó Tuama.
He feels that while the competition is as fierce as ever, little has changed.
“I don’t think the game has changed. The players have changed, the same styles are there that the older generation had. I don’t see much change in it.
“I think if you look at Diarmaid Nash and compare him to previous players, you’d probably say he was like Kennedy or Healy, very methodical. You’d probably compare Mulkerrins to Brady, McCarthy is like Healy in how he controls the front court... All the players now have elements of the previous generation of players.”
Still, time moves on. Shanks is now one of the elder statesmen on the senior handball circuit.
“Those guys I trained with over the years are getting a little bit older now as well, lately I’ve been playing a lot of the young Tyrone players like Sean Kerr, Johnny Woods and Gabhain McCrystal before he went to the States so it’s been a bit of a shock going to play those guys who are maybe 10 years or more younger than me.
“When you compare to the other fellas, I was always 10 years younger than them. The changing of the guard, I suppose, will eventually come.”
Not, he hopes, too soon – and certainly not this Saturday when he takes on the latest pretender to the throne, Martin Mulkerrins of Galway. Shanks is well aware of the threat the Moycullen man poses.
“Martin is a very strong, very talented player. He plays a very high tempo game so he’s going to put his foot on the pedal and he’s going to go hard. He has a great serve with hook, he can flatten the ball from anywhere in the court and he does it with such power and strength. He’s a complete player.”
Shanks, a software developer by trade, fixed some bugs before last year’s final. He has admitted before that had he lost again to McCarthy, he probably would have hung up the gloves. That he didn’t – and delivered such a revelatory performance in ousting the holder – spoke volumes for his persistence and ability to think his way around whatever glitches stopped him closing the show in other years.
As to what exactly changed, well, you’ll have to work that out for yourself...
“I’m not going to divulge any information... My prep was definitely different last year than previous years, there’s no doubt about that. I’m just going to prepare like I did last year for this one, whether that has a say in the result or not, who knows, but it will hopefully have me playing as well as I can play.”
He may turn 35 next month but Shanks remains in tremendous physical condition, as he showed against Nash. Combining work and family life with training and competing is “not that difficult”, he reckons and he draws parallels with top level footballers and hurlers, many of whom are long retired by their mid-30s.
“I think back in my first two finals against Brady, I was in great condition. That was the best, the fittest and the strongest I’ve ever been. I was a lot younger then and didn’t have as much responsibilities. Now, I’m still pretty fit and strong.
“I don’t find it overly difficult, handball is an individual sport, you don’t have a set time to meet up with a team so you can work around family a lot easier, do your sessions in the morning and late at night whereas other GAA players don’t have that luxury.
“I think it’s disappointing that a lot of the top footballers and hurlers are retiring early and I think that’s a huge loss to the game.
“The skill level those guys have, all that experience... They don’t need to do three or four weights sessions a week, at the end of the day you only have to be strong enough and they are at a stage of their career where the strength and conditioning isn’t going to have a huge bearing on how they perform on the day.
“All that skill and talent they have developed shouldn’t go to waste in their 30s when arguably they are at their best.”
Just like the man himself!