Brady’s focus is on his own game ahead of senior final

Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.

This Saturday (Croke Park, 2pm), Paul Brady will attempt to win his 11th All-Ireland Senior Singles title when he takes on the defending champion, Robbie McCarthy from Mullingar, in the final. The ‘Gunner’ owns all of the records in the 4-Wall code - 10 All-Ireland Singles, 11 All-Ireland doubles with Michael Finnegan, 10 US Nationals (joint record with Naty Alvarado Sr) and five World Championships Open Singles – so at this point, one would imagine he is playing just to gild his own legend even further.

The reality is that Brady’s path to this oneills.com Senior Singles final has been an unusual one in that he decided, he says, almost on a whim to throw his hat in the ring, having returned to competitive action just for fitness reasons.

“Essentially, I was just trying to lose some weight over the winter so I went back playing recreationally maybe last September or October. Then James kind of wanted me to play doubles with him in the Masters and I said I said I’d use that to motivate myself I suppose just to shed some pounds,” Brady told the Anglo-Celt this week.

“Then as it got closer, people close to me said to me ‘you’re playing well, would you not consider entering the Senior’ and the format of the All-Ireland kind of lends itself to that, you get some recovery between games. That is essentially why I came back playing, there’s no masterplan or no hidden agenda.

“It was just literally play the Masters, try to win that All-Ireland and then at the last minute, people close to me said ‘would you not consider doing that?’ and that’s why I entered.”

The Cavanman has picked up wins against Michael Gregan, Peter Funchion, Conor McElduff and Diarmaid Nash to reach this stage and he feels he is playing well, albeit that he can get significantly better.

“I’m happy enough after being out of action for so long but I looked back at the video of my recent matches and I can see a lot of areas of improvement, notably the second part of the game against Diarmaid when he got a pretty elementary serve – I kind of hadn’t prepared for that.

“Aside from that, it’s been smooth enough in all the games and there’s been a lot of learning in the matches. I’m glad to have had some setbacks within games and to have had to adjust quickly, it’s going to serve me well hopefully in the final.

“I’ve got to prepare for every eventuality, so I will be. Those warnings in all my matches have left me in a good place, I feel I’m playing well but still, I can definitely improve on my recent performances and that’s what I’m going to be aiming to do for the final.”

Asked if he feels there is more pressure on himself or on defending champion Robbie McCarthy, the Mullahoran native and Virginia resident says he will not be thinking about his opponent’s mindset whatsoever.

“I don’t know if there’s any pressure on Robbie McCarthy, to be honest I don’t really think about him. For me, it’s about seeing where I can improve and I can see a lot of areas where I can. Whether Robbie McCarthy feels pressure, that’s something you’ll have to ask him but it’s not something that even comes into my psychology to be honest.

“I’m totally focused on myself and trying to improve, as I said, I can see a lot of areas that I can improve on and that’s where my focus lies.

“I don’t think about the pressure situation on either side. Essentially it’s a match I want to win and that’s totally where my focus lies – on how I’m going to do that and the best way I can do that.

“I’ll have a plan ready and I’ll be trying to execute it and that’s where all my focus is.”

McCarthy, eight years Brady’s junior, is a gifted player who has multiple wins over all of the best players in Ireland bar Brady, whom he has never beaten.

A capacity sell-out crowd is expected at the National Handball Centre on Saturday. The programme on the show court starts at 1pm with the Ladies Senior Singles final between Catriona Casey and Fiona Tully, with the Men’s final likely to start at approximately 2pm.

There are a limited number of tickets still available – see gaahandball.ie.