Sutherland and O’Neill set for battle

WITH the national championships starting tomorrow night week at the National Stadium, boxing fans are looking forward to the seemingly inevitable middleweight battle between champion Darren Sutherland and challenger Darren O’Neill.

A year ago, Sutherland was in unbeatable form after a battling performance in the world championships, in China, where he lost to eventual gold medallist, Karbov Matvey.

He wasn’t Irish champion when he made that trip, but quickly put that right at the national championships, last January, where his only tough fight was against the up and coming Portlaoise man Edward Healy.

The same night, Darren O’Neill — for the second time — lost to Ireland’s most experienced international, Kenneth Egan, who went on to win a bronze medal at the European championships, in Plovdiv.

Darren Sutherland would have gone to those championships as a medal favourite only for suffering a serious eye injury in his clash with Danil Shved, at the Ireland-Russia international in May.

That incident left High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, looking around for a replacement, and when O’Neill dropped a division, he was selcted to go to Plovdiv.

The Paulstown man, a former Kilkenny minor hurler, had been named on the under-21 panel, but turned down the chance to win an All-Ireland medal to throw his lot in with the High Performance Squad.

“I had a decision to make and I chose boxing,” the student teacher said, adding that he had made the right decision.

He battled his way through to the quarter-final stages of the tournament before losing out to a Scot.

“Inexperience played a big role in that defeat,” he said. “After all it was my first senior international championship and my biggest assignment to date. Still, I was very disappointed because I felt that I could have done a lot better.”

This is another big year for O’Neill with qualification for the Olympics a major incentive, as the top eight at the world championships go through automatically.

“Everyone wants to win a national title and it is never easy. To get to the world championships, you have to win an Irish title, so I am not looking beyond the nationals,” he said.

“I know everyone is talking about myself and Darren Sutherland, but there are others out there. Eddie Healy got to the final last year and Eamonn O’Kane is back. He gave Andy Lee a good fight in the finals a couple of years ago,” O’Neill added.

“You just cannot afford to underestimate anyone. One punch — one cut — and your chances of winning a title is gone.

“Whichever of us wins the title should have a fair chance of doing well at the world championships. Both Darren and myself are ranked in the top eight in Europe.”

It’s a long time since there was such interest in the middleweight division, dominated for a couple of years by Andy Lee and, on his departure to the paid ranks, by Darren Sutherland.