O’Neill to teach opponent a lesson

DARREN O’NEILL, a student teacher from Kilkenny, will fill the middleweight berth on the Irish team when the European Boxing Championships get under way in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, later today.

The opening ceremony was held last night and the draw will take place after this morning’s weigh-in.

Darren Sutherland suffered an eye injury against Russia at the National Stadium in May and has been battling with it ever since, but O’Neill has filled the breach.

O’Neill was runner-up to Kenneth Egan in the light heavyweight division at the National Championships but was always of a build that would indicate that it might take little effort for him to drop a division, and this he did. He has fast hands and a quick brain — an exciting combination — and with a bit of luck in this morning’s draw he could advance to the business end of the tournament.

“There is so much luck involved,” High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, said. “But, having said that, the boys are all in great form. We were delighted with the training camp in Moscow. Not only did it sharpen them up, but they were also able to spar with the top Russians and that gave them a lot of confidence as well as good physical conditioning.

The most experienced man on the team is the national light heavyweight champion, Kenneth Egan (Neilstown) although he is still just in his early 20s. He is joined by O’Neill, who boxes out of the Paulstown Club in Kilkenny, welterweight Roy Sheahan (St. Michael’s, Athy), who finally won the elusive national senior welterweight title this year, and his clubmate, featherweight Eric Donovan, who is a two time national senior champion.

The squad arrived in Plovdiv on Tuesday following two weeks in the pre-tournament camp in Moscow.

Ireland has a distinguished history at European level with five gold, four silver and 21 bronze medals won over the course of the 35 championships to date. The best medal hauls were achieved when the championships were held in Dublin but the late, legendary Maxie McCullagh won a gold medal in Oslo in 1949 and Dublin featherweight Paul Griffin won gold in Gothenburg in 1991.