Wait over as O’Neill set to meet Sutherland

TWELVE months ago this week Darren O’Neill’s Olympic dream was shattered when he fractured his wrist while training for the national senior boxing championships.

But the last six months has seen a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the Paulstown man.

“It was on January 4 last year that I broke my wrist,” he recalled yesterday. “And to say I was devastated would be an understatement.”

He could only sit at the ringside and think of what might have been as rival Darren Sutherland defeated Eamonn O’Kane to retain his Irish middleweight title in a one-sided final.

That, too, was an amazing return for Sutherland whose career has been a story of drama from the outset.

It began when, as a 16-year-old working on a film set in Dublin, he door-stepped Prince Naseem’s trainer, Brendan Ingle, telling him he wanted to be a champion.

The affable Ingle saw something special in him and welcomed him to his gym in Sheffield where the teenager did not disappoint causing the trainer to announce: “I have a great prospect over from Dublin.”

Sutherland, however, reconsidered his position after a couple of years, returned to his family who were living in Co Meath, sat his Leaving Cert and earned a place in DCU.

When Andy Lee departed the amateur ranks and the High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, was looking for someone to take his place he, like Ingle, saw something special in Sutherland who, without having even boxed the senior championships, found himself in the world championships where he stopped everyone in sight before losing to the eventual winner in the quarter finals.

But he suffered a career-threatening eye injury against another Russian during an international in Dublin the following May and Keegan, seeking out another replacement, persuaded Darren O’Neill, who had lost two light heavyweight finals to Kenneth Egan, to step down to middleweight for the European championships in Bulgaria, where he made the quarter finals and was unlucky not to win a medal.

Darren Sutherland bravely battled his way back from injury and, this time last year, the most talked about fight in Irish boxing was not Bernard Dunne’s European title shot or John Duddy’s explosive battles in New York but the now inevitable showdown between Sutherland and O’Neill at the seniors.

The injury to O’Neill’s hand put paid to that and he was forced to sit out the championships and was inactive up to mid-May when he went to a multi-nations tournament in the Czech Republic where he beat a Brazilian and knocked out the Armenian who lost narrowly to Darren Sutherland at the world championships in Chicago.

With his medal in his pocket, he was back at St Patrick’s Teacher Training College in Drumcondra two days later to sit his final exams.

The showdown between Sutherland and O’Neill almost happened when both went to the Ukraine for a multi-nations tournament.

Again fate kept them apart. Darren O’Neill broke his thumb with a place in the final at his mercy and Darren Sutherland made it through but had to settle for the silver medal.

They then went their separate ways; O’Neill went to a multi-nations tournament in Cyprus where he claimed another gold medal as Sutherland packed his kit bag for the world championships in Chicago where he just had to make the last eight to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

“When I saw Darren’s draw I said ‘that’s it’,” O’Neill admitted. “I was thinking about how I might make the Olympics.

“But nobody knew anything about the Venezuelan Darren (Sutherland) had to box for a place in the quarter finals and he was a real surprise packet.”

As Sutherland climbed down from the ring dejected that night O’Neill, back home in Paulstown, could not believe his luck. He had one more shot at Olympic qualification.

“There will be others to watch once the entries are complete,” O’Neill said. “Darren beat Eamonn O’Kane in the final last year but Eamonn went on to win the Commonwealth championships and he will be formidable.”

The fact that the championships will be boxed over four successive days rather than three weekends makes it even more interesting.

“I am in favour of it because I feel it is a much fairer system,” said Sutherland, “Over three weekends fellows who are struggling with the weights can make the weight much easier but now they will have to weigh in each day.”

Nobody is looking forward to this showdown more than High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, who has been at the helm as Billy Walsh and his coaching staff took them to the verge of greatness.

“I would not even hazard a guess at the outcome,” he said.

“I would not be surprised if this was to come down to a test of physical strength.

“It is a contest every boxing fan wants to see but please don’t ask me who is going to win.”