Eoin Keane still answering the call as the Barrs lean on basketball’s voice, Timmy McCarthy

There are a few things that have marked out the Barrs’ year. The gradual improvement from week to week. The refinement in their puck-out patterns. A squad brimming with inter-county talent.

And then there’s something else – something you don’t often find in a hurling dressing room. Their performance coach isn’t a sports scientist or a strength and conditioning man. Not quite the norm.

He’s a basketball man. More than that – the voice of Irish basketball.

Timmy McCarthy, the man who brought “downtown” and “boomshakalaka” into living rooms across the country, has been dipping into Togher. From courtside to the sideline, his voice is now part of the Barrs’ soundtrack.

Eoin Keane, who has been around long enough to have heard plenty of voices, admits this one hit differently.

“Boomshakalaka!” Keane says, laughing. “I only knew the voice, until meeting the man in person!

“But Timmy’s a great guy and he's a very good around our group and we're privileged to have him.

“Timmy comes in and he dips in and dips out when he can, he just goes through a few things, nothing too out of the ordinary, he just analyses what we do in terms of our preparation and that. A lot of teams have it now.” 

If the voice of Irish basketball has helped steady the Barrs, Keane himself has been no small part of that same work. At 36, he is still playing, still contributing – and still laughing off the question of whether coaching will fill the gap when he finally calls time.

He has already dipped a toe. Last year he was a selector with the club’s U21s, who took the city crown and lost a county final in extra-time.

“We were knocked out early in the group stages of championship, and I was involved in doing a bit of coaching with the U12s in the club and Ger asked me to get involved in U21,” Keane says. “We did a bit of training, I kind of knew the lads.

SNOWBALLED

“We beat Blackrock in the first round of that championship, and that kind of snowballed. We won a city championship and got to a county final and we were unlucky to lose after extra time to Midleton.

“It was a good year, like you know the lads, you get to know some of the lads you don’t know, some of the minors and it's just a good experience and you're just trying to just bring something, give something back.” 

But does he love it? Not quite.

“I don't really, to be honest with you!” Eoin laughs. “My only thing is to give a small bit back. 

The Barrs have been really good to me over the years.

He’s not exaggerating. His senior debut came in 2007, when Ger Cunningham was manager and Erin’s Own dumped them out with a last-minute goal in a semi-final. Since then, Keane has been ever-present – defender, leader, glue.

And still, after all that time, he talks like a man who hasn’t tired of it one bit.

“Sometimes there, it can be frustrating if you pick up injuries and stuff like that. But you’ll be finished up playing long enough.

“I like the training aspect of it. I like being involved in the team and in the group, we have great friends within the group, and you just want to represent the Barrs,” he remarks. “And if that’s not playing, you’ll do something around the club.” 

That was the case again last time out, when he replaced the injured Cian Walsh in the first half and played his part in the dethroning of Imokilly.

“You do a role for the team,” he explains. “I was unfortunate, I picked up an injury against Blackrock and I didn't probably train for a couple of weeks and that's the way it is, you just have to roll with these things and do a role for the team and I’m just happy to do so.

You have to do that for your club and when someone asks you to do something, you just do it.

“We’ve been very inconsistent over the last, probably year or so, and it was trying to find that consistency.

“We had a good result, a good team performance and we used the bench. We beat the county champions, an exceptional Imokilly team, and we just move on now.” 

For all the talk of retirement, Keane still sounds like a man playing in the present tense. And with the Barrs’ season alive, Sarsfields on the horizon this Sunday, and Timmy McCarthy calling things from downtown, there may yet be a few more boomshakalakas left in Keane.