Cagey Sheehan wins a cracker
The young guns — Sheehan at 21 is seeking his third national senior title while McCarthy, a former world youths bronze medallist, lost the last two light heavyweight finals to Kenneth Egan — set the Stadium alight deep into a long day that saw 36 quarter finals decided.
McCarthy, fighting at heavyweight for the first time, was unlucky to be drawn against the champion, and the fact that the fight was judged in the old style by the five ringside judges after the computer scoring system malfunctioned added an air of intrigue.
Both men boxed brilliantly. Sheehan kept McCarthy at the end of an accurate left jab in the first round and when McCarthy came forward with some vicious combinations in the second and third rounds he was able to counter with a solid left hand to the head. Both men scored with good combinations to the body but it was Sheehan’s lethal left hand that carried him through.
“He’s good, he’s very experienced and that’s why I adopted a different approach this evening,” Sheehan said. “It was a very slow pace compared to any of my other fights. You can’t jump in against Tommy McCarthy because he’ll pick you off easily. He is a top class counter-puncher and boxer so I had to be very careful. I had to choose my shots wisely.
“I kept him at the end of my jab in the first round — kept my range — and when he came lunging with the right hand I had him with the left hook. It was good but I was disappointed when we drew each other straight away because we are very good mates. We have been on Irish teams together since we were 13 years of age.”
“We knew McCarthy had a big left hook so we could not use the right hand,” Sheehan’s coach, Martin Fennessy, said. “This ranks among Con’s best performance because McCarthy is an excellent boxer.”
McCarthy was one of a number of stars who exited the championships. Former welterweight champion, Willie McLoughlin, bowed out in Friday’s preliminaries as did Commonwealth Games champion, Patrick Gallagher.
On Saturday, Youth Olympics champion, Ryan Burnett (Holy Family GG), former bantamweight champion Ryan Lindberg (Immaculata), former world youths champion and defending light welterweight champion, Ray Moylette (St. Anne’s Westport), and former three-time champion and EU gold medallist, Roy Sheahan (St. Michael’s, Athy) made their exits.
European silver medallist Darren O’Neill (Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny) kept on track for a third middleweight title when he stopped Conor Coyle (St. Joseph’s, Derry) early in the second round after forcing two counts.
Next weekend he will meet Conrad Cummings (Holy Trinity) in the semi-finals who was very impressive in beating Rory O’Donoghue (Watergrasshill) 16-1 while last year’s beaten finalist and 2009 European youths champion, Jason Quigley (Finn Valley), beat Luke Keeler (Crumlin) 9-2.
World bronze medallist, John Joe Nevin (Cavan), has a chance of qualifying for his second Olympic Games through the WSB but a bid to get back to Paris on Saturday to prepare for next Friday night’s fight in the series was thwarted when he failed to get his quarter-final brought forward to Friday night.
Coming off a slow start, Nevin was brilliant in the third round of his quarter final with George Bates (St. Mary’s, Dublin) to win 9-5 and, after his WSB fight on Friday night, he will meet Derek Thorpe (St. Aidan’s) in the semi-finals on Saturday at the National Stadium.
“Nothing went right for me until the third round,” Nevin explained. “My timing was off and everything. I wanted to box yesterday because I had to get a flight to Paris this morning for my WSB match but they would not agree. They could have done me a favour by having it yesterday and I could be out in France today getting ready for my WSB fight next Friday.
“When I thought I was boxing yesterday I went up to 59 kg to get myself hydrated so that was 3 kg over the weight. I had to lose that weight again this morning. They did me no favours but a win is a win.”
Welterweight champion, John Joe Joyce, had a close shave against Shane Murtagh (Crumlin) when, after both boxers were given public warnings by referee, James McCarron in the third round, the result was tied at 4-4 and when it went to count back they were still tied 11-11. It then went to the judges who gave the verdict to Joyce on a 4-1 majority decision.
