Sutherland and O’Neill to go toe-to-toe in final again

DARREN SUTHERLAND of St Saviours OBA set up another exciting middle-weight meeting with Darren O’Neill (Paulstown) in tonight’s finals when he stopped Sean Shevlin in the second round of their box-off at the National Stadium last night.

In an open draw for the box-offs between the semi-finalists from the national championships which will decide who goes to the final Olympic qualifying tournament in Athens in two weeks, Sutherland — the reigning national senior champion — was pitted against Sean Shevlin (Dealgan) in a repeat of the semi-final pairing while O’Neill got a bye in the absence of Edward Healy (Portlaoise), the man he beat in his semi-final.

For Sutherland it was a repeat of the national championships when he stopped the Dundalk middleweight in the second round, only this time it was even more convincing.