Magic moment for McCann as handballers take world titles
Joe McCann of Ballaghaderreen in action against Brendan Fleming of Ballydesmond, Cork, in the Men's 40+ semi-final during day three of the O'Neills.com World 4-Wall Championships at Croke Park. Picture: Stephen Marken/Sportsfile
There was a spectacular and emotional return to the national stage for Mayo handballer Joe McCann when he and doubles partner Robbie McCarthy won the World Men’s Open Doubles 4 Wall Championship at Croke Park.
The victory, on Sunday, November 3, came just over one year after Joe and wife Niamh lost their 21-month-old son CJ to an extremely rare form of brain cancer.
Understandably then, Ballaghaderreen man Joe was overcome with emotion following his and McCarthy’s victory over Killian Carroll and Martin Mulkerrins in a three-game thriller at GAA headquarters.
It looked all over for McCann and McCarthy, a native of Westmeath, when they slipped 1-7 in arrears in the tiebreaker but a succession of superb kill shots by McCarthy and some expert covering of the right by McCann saw the duo fight back to claim the final game 11-7 and lift the world title.
They had lost the opening game 13-15 but flipped that score in the second to force the tiebreaker.
A feature of what was an incredibly close contest was the many long, energy-sapping rallies and some spectacular kills and retrieves by all four players.
To give an indication of the quality of the opposition, Killian Carroll not only won the men’s open singles title at the previous World Championships in Minnesota in 2018 but it was his doubles partner last Sunday, Martin Mulkerrins who he beat in that final.
But Robbie McCarthy himself is a nine time winner of the All-Ireland 60x30 men’s championship so the handball on show was of the very highest order. Indeed, in the case of McCarthy, it’s actually his second time to win the men’s open doubles at the World Championships having, quite ironically, got the better of current partner Joe McCann in Calgary back in 2015. McCarthy then played with Diarmaid Nash while McCann was partnered by Riki O’Gara.
“My God, it’s an incredible experience. It is unbelievable!” McCann told gaa.ie after this year’s final. Having spent much of the past 12 months dedicated to organising and taking part in ‘CJ’s Rainbow Charity Cycle’ which raised over €250,000 for children’s cancer charities ‘Oscar’s Kids’ and ‘Hand In Hand’, he explained how it was a phone call from Robbie McCarthy that enticed him out of retirement to play against men much younger and who are semi-pro on the US circuit.
“In fairness it was a very strange phone call and I asked Niamh could I put in a lot more training than I would have expected so I could play with Robbie.
“I just want to add to that, I’m probably going to start crying because a lot’s happened in the last year.
“It was genuinely an honour to get a phone call, Robbie is the current All-Ireland champion and senior handball was a thing of the past for me. I asked him ‘Robbie, do you think we can win?’ and in his thickest Westmeath accent, he said ‘I’m not ringing you because I think we can lose, Joe’!” It wasn’t the only title to be won by a Mayo handballer at the World 40x20 Championships however, as the pairing of Lorcan Conlon (Bofield) and Shane Heraty (Aughagower) claimed victory in the final of the men’s ‘B’ doubles. Playing on a Thursday night all the way down in Coolgreany, Co Wexford, the Mayo duo fought from losing the opening game 11-15 to their Kildare/Tipperary opposition to win the next game 15-9 before taking the tiebreaker 11-8.
