Templeogue name Paul Carr as new head coach

TEMPLEOGUE Basketball Club have announced the appointment of a new head coach for their Senior’s Men’s team with Paul Carr arriving at the helm.

Carr will be taking over from the previous coach Sergio Irles Fernandes who is returning to his native Spain.

A native of Donegal, Carr has extensive experience already in Basketball after assistant coaching positions with Team Northwest, Dublin Lions, Ireland U20s and Malahide as well as Head coach position at Swords Thunder where he won the Women’s D1 Northern Conference and League trophy  as well as reached a  League Playoff final and National Cup Final.

Templeogue finished in the bottom half of Division 1 and Carr is aware that a club the size and stature of Templeogue will have ambitions to get themselves back into the Super League.

“Templeogue is one of the most established clubs in the country and have a long tradition of being successful and developing great players.

‘That’s one of the big draws to joining the club. There’s that foundation already there to build on.”

“The overall goal is to be competitive. The overall aim for a club the size of Templeogue with the history that it has is to get back into the Superleague.

‘Whether that’s in the first year or more of a long term process remains to be seen. The main goal is to build a very competitive team.”

Coming into the role Carr highlights the excellent crop of young players as well as attitudes held within the squad as key strengths that he can hopefully build upon over the next year.

“There’s a number of young players in their early 20s who are on the team at the moment but there’s a strong group coming behind as well.

‘They were in the u20 national league final this year and they have very strong age groups at U18s, U17s and U16s also. There’s a lot of talent there.”

“Last year one of the things I really liked about them is that they were incredibly hard working, especially on the defensive end.

‘They put a lot of work in with their fitness and ability to close gaps.

‘There’s a lot of young players with high potential.

‘When you’re coming into a team that you know will work extremely hard that has the baseline fitness and potential. It’s an exciting project.”

“Then it’s about finding a bit of experience with some of the pros we bring in or maybe one or two additional Irish players to bolster that, but in terms of ability, the effort and energy and the positivity of the group was something that really drew me to the job.”

Carr will hope to guide Templeogue to times of success as the club celebrates its 50th year.

It is worth noting that the club is actively looking for sponsors to support the team with interested parties welcomed to make contact.