Joyce and Frampton top the bill
The presence of Olympic silver medallist Kenny Egan, seeking a sensational ninth successive national senior title, will ensure a full house.
The Neilstown southpaw faces one of Ireland’s up-and-coming stars in Tommy McCarthy (Oliver Plunkett’s) who won a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships in Mexico last year.
The Belfast teenager’s only loss in the past year was in the semi-finals of those championships when he went under to Russian, Marten Magomedov, 8-6.
He looks a mighty prospect, but tonight’s light heavyweight final may be coming a year too early.
His laid-back disposition will suit Egan who likes to pick off the points early and then control affairs with his counter-punch.
Should McCarthy remain on at light heavyweight he will prove a handful for Egan in the lead up to London 2012 but he could be operating at heavyweight by then.
“I would not be at all surprised if that is the case,” the Irish coach, Billy Walsh, admitted. “Tommy is quite tall and I am looking forward to having him full time in the High Performance Unit to watch him develop. Let’s face it, he is very young.”
The bantam, feather, light and light welterweight finals are likely to produce fireworks.
The experienced John Joe Nevin (Cavan) will be the favourite to retain his bantamweight title. After winning the title last year he went on to claim gold medals at the Olympic qualifier in Pescara and the European Union championships before going to Beijing.
All that time, however, Ryan Lindberg has been waiting in the wings. He is still smarting at how he lost his senior title last year after coming back from the world championships in Chicago. Then Nevin beat him in the semi-finals to put paid to the dream.
Like Nevin, he has a lot of talent but whether he can match the aggression of the Mullingar man remains to be seen.
Similarly, Carl Frampton has been eyeing David Oliver Joyce’s featherweight title. Kevin Fennessy from Clonmel beat Frampton in the semi-finals last year before losing to Joyce in the finals.
When Joyce was ill Frampton won the box-off for the European championships later in the year but sportingly agreed to a another box-off with the Mullingar man who won narrowly and then lost to the Olympic champion, Vasyl Lomachenko, in the quarter-finals in Liverpool.
Eric Donovan turned in his best performance in a long time to beat the world youth lightweight champion, Ray Moylette, in last weekend’s semi-finals and a reproduction of that form will make tonight’s final with defending champion, Ross Hickey (Grangecon) exciting.
Last year Hickey stripped the Athy man of the title in a close contest but when they met again in the qualifier for the Europeans he won by a mile and the Wicklow man went on to win a bronze medal in Liverpool.
John Joe Joyce (St Michael’s, Athy) stopped Philip Sutcliffe (Crumlin) in last year’s light welterweight final before going on to win a gold medal at the qualifiers and making it to the last eight in Beijing and, one of the few Olympians to compete in Liverpool, he came away from the European championships with a bronze medal.
He has not put a foot wrong throughout those championships but Sutcliffe, whose father Philip is a former European bronze medallist, packs a big punch and that is what will make this contest exciting especially if Joyce gets involved once again.
Darren O’Neill (Paulstown) is poised to lift his first national senior title tonight after appearing in five senior finals. He lost three of those to Kenny Egan at light heavyweight and, in fact, has the distinction of having beaten three of the four boxers on the podium in Beijing — including Olympic champion — except Egan.
Last year he fought out a thrilling final with Olympic bronze medallist, Darren Sutherland at middleweight and tonight he contests that title with a talented newcomer, Stephen O’Reilly, the current U-21 and intermediate champion.
Clonmel heavyweight, Con Sheehan, faces an interesting assignment against Alan Reynolds (Sligo) who returns after three years “in retirement” in search of an eighth national senior title. It would be most unusual if the Joyce brothers, David and Joe, from Moate, Co Westmeath, go ahead and contest the super heavyweight final.
“I certainly have not seen it in my time,” Irish Coach Billy Walsh said. “It certainly would be unusual, particularly with David quite a bit older than Joe who is just 18.”
Tonight’s finals will be televised on RTÉ 2, commencing at 9pm.
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