Walsh content as Irish are ready to rumble

Coach Billy Walsh last night admitted he could “not be happier” as the seven-man Irish boxing team touched down in Trabzon, Turkey yesterday ahead of the European Olympic qualifier which begins on Saturday.

The squad broke camp in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where all 10 Olympic hopefuls had been training alongside the host nation, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for the previous two weeks. The full squad included the three boxers who qualified for London 2012 at last year’s world championships in Baku — Belfast flyweight Michael Conlan, Kilkenny middleweight, Darren O’Neill, and world bronze medallist, John Joe Nevin, who is still nursing a fractured jaw sustained in the World Series of Boxing. Conlan and O’Neill remained on in the Ukraine for a multi nations tournament.

The remaining seven are on a career-defining mission. Paddy Barnes, the most experienced member of the squad, competed in the Beijing Olympics after emerging from relative obscurity to secure qualification at the 2007 world championships in Chicago.

After winning an Olympic bronze medal, Barnes added European and Commonwealth Games gold medals to his collection but a troublesome wrist injury kept him out of last year’s European Championships and left him ill-prepared for the world championships in Baku.

With some much-needed competition behind him, he has a great chance of qualifying from Trabzon, with the top four boxers to go through from the light flyweight division and so, too, has Mullingar lightweight, David Oliver Joyce.

Joyce got another shot at Olympic qualification when Dubliner Michael McDonagh — who beat him in the last two senior championship finals — withdrew from the training camp in Germany.

But it gets tricky from here on. Light-welterweight Ross Hickey must win gold to make London while only the two finalists will qualify from Adam Nolan’s welterweight division.

Joe Ward’s failure at qualify from the world championships still irks the Moate teen. However the manner in which he beat up Beijing silver medallist, Kenneth Egan, to win his second national senior title and then his victory over the 2009 world light-heavyweight champion, Egor Mekhontsev at the Chemistry Cup in Halle on St Patrick’s Day makes him the favourite for a place among the three qualifiers from Trabzon.

Tommy McCarthy from Belfast, a former world junior bronze medallist, faces an enormous task at heavyweight, where only the gold medallist will qualify, while the talented Clonmel super heavyweight, Con Sheehan, will also have to make the final to make the Games.

There is a huge air of excitement ahead of tomorrow’s draw. The fact that Turkey have yet to qualify a boxer for London 2012 adds to the hostility visiting boxers will face in an already charged environment.

“The draw will be very important,” Walsh admitted. “If you draw a hometown boxer in your first fight, it is going to be difficult.

“All I want is for every boxer to perform to his ability and do himself justice on the day. I know every one of them is capable of qualifying for the Olympics. Our preparations have been excellent. We have just come through a tough training camp. I could not be happier.

“The boxers are up for it and have belief in themselves, which is very important. We need to get them to perform to the best of their abilities and take care of business inside the ring because that’s all they control.”

Interestingly, there is no Dublin boxer on the team. Lightweight Michael McDonagh (St Mary’s) was on the original squad but he withdrew during the training camp in Germany and was replaced by David Oliver Joyce.

IRELAND: Light-Flyweight: Paddy Barnes (Holy Family GG, Belfast); Lightweight: David Oliver Joyce (St Michael’s, Athy); Light-welterweight: Ross Hickey (Grangecon, Co. Wicklow); Welterweight: Adam Nolan (Bray, Co. Wicklow); Light-heavyweight: Joe Ward (Moate, Co. Westmeath); Heavyweight: Tommy McCarthy (Oliver Plunkett ABC, Belfast); Super-heavyweight: Con Sheehan (Clonmel, Co. Tipperary).