Limerick’s Seamus O’Carroll and CJ Fitzpatrick are just one side eager to go all the way in this year’s M Donnelly GAA All-Ireland senior doubles championships.
By Sunday evening, the doubles series will be narrowed down to the final four and the Limerick pairing have a stern opener against the experienced Vinnie Moran and Campbell Brennan from Mayo.
They may be the youngest side to chase the senior medals but Limerick have made the transition into the senior ranks from minor in just two seasons very smoothly.
In June, they were edged out in the senior hardball final by a three-point margin in the third against Dublin’s Eoin Kennedy and Egin Jenson and O’Carroll also reached the singles final going down in three games to Westmeath’s Robbie McCarthy.
Handball has produced its fair share of dual stars in recent times, namely Kilkenny’s DJ Carey and Cavan’s Paul Brady and just last weekend, former USA junior handball winner Richie Hogan bagged two goals for the Cats in Croke Park against Waterford.
O’Carroll, who scooped the national young player-of-the-year award for the fourth consecutive time last December mixes not two, but the three codes of hurling, football and handball at the highest levels.
“Preparations for the senior softball haven’t really been going great due to my involvement with the Limerick senior footballers and Limerick Under 21 hurlers.
“I would have liked to have been able to concentrate more on the handball side of things but the commitment with the footballers, who made it to the All-Ireland quarter-final in Croke Park for the first time ever, and the hurlers, who won the Munster Championship and are now looking forward to the All-Ireland semi-final in two weeks time against Galway, has just been too much for me to try and juggle at the same time.
"It just isn’t possible to do all three and as a result my handball has suffered this year for the 60x30 championships,” said O’Carroll.
He added: “Up to the Kerry match it had been very difficult to combine handball, football and hurling due to the training commitments. It entailed seven days a week training as well as trying to work for the summer to save for college. I felt that my body was tired from it all as I had no recovery time and it was just too much to try to do it all.”
As a result of his talents being utilised to the maximum for his beloved Limerick, O’Carroll has had to focus on the softball doubles and play no part in the singles this time around.
“I was fiercely disappointed having to pull out of the singles as I exceeded my expectations this year in the hardball by getting to both finals and it would have been nice to win either the singles or doubles.
“It also proved to me that I can compete and beat some of the best players at the top level and it would have been nice to try doing the same in the softball. I couldn’t give the handball the commitment that I felt was required to compete with the likes of Eoin (Kennedy) so I decided not to enter.
“When you’re competing at such a level and you can’t train as much as you should be, then I felt I wasn’t prepared well enough, so I decided to concentrate on just the doubles with CJ (Fitzpatrick) and try to give that a right lash,” he said.
Looking forward to this weekend’s opponents, O’Carroll is well aware of the Ballaghadereen duo.
“We played the lads two years ago when we were minor and they beat us in the third game. They are a good partnership and complement each other well being a left handed and right handed partnership.
“Last time we played we were more worried about winning our minor All-Ireland so this time we will want to put up a better performance and hopefully beat the lads and progress further. It will be tough though but hopefully things will go our way with a bit of luck.”
A win for the Limerick combination would pit them in Sunday’s quarter final with either the 2010 beaten finalists, Kilkenny’s Ducksy Walsh and Michael Clifford, or Meath’s Carl Browne and Gary McConnell.
2010 victors Meath’s Sheridan and Carroll meet Kilkenny’s William Love and Daniel Love in the Na Fianna club in Dublin with the winners then having to do battle with either Wexford’s Gavin Buggy and Paul Lambert or Cavan’s Michael Finnegan and Raymond Cunningham.
Recently crowned 60x30 National’s champions, Wexford’s Barry Goff and Colin Keeling, will be eager to keep their winning habit intact as they go head to head with Roscommon’s Ricki O'Gara and Damien Martin at Garryhill, Carlow.
If the fancied partnership of Goff and Keeling do win, they will then prepare for the winners of Wicklow (Michael Gregan and Johnny Willoughby) and Tipperary (Paul Mullins and Ger Anthony).
The remaining matches in the last 16 include Mayo (Dessie Keegan and Joe McCann) versus Kilkenny (Nicholas Anthony and Brian Manogue) and former champions, Dublin (Eoin Kennedy and Egin Jensen) who have a tricky encounter with Tipperary (Fergal Collins and David Maloney).
Four times world champion O’Carroll is one of the hottest breed of young stars playing for major honours in all three codes at present and he’s relishing the challenge in the coming weeks.
“I’m looking forward to the softball doubles championship now as well as the All-Ireland semi-final of the U21 hurling championship. It was an unbelievable experience to play in Croke Park with the footballers and it was a change compared to playing in the 60x30 at the back of The Hill,” he concluded.
