Rebels rumble for a good cause

NOT quite the MGM Grand or Madison Square Garden but Cork’s footballers battered each other into submission at a charity boxing night in the Rochestown Park Hotel on Saturday night.

Arguably the fight of the night was dual star Eoin ‘Cads’ Cadogan against Paudie ‘Energiser’ Kissane. And Kissane lived up to the billing, unleashing a volley of punches from the off that surprised his opponent. Indeed Kissane never let up and practically chased Cadogan around the ring at times.

The Douglas man was no shrinking violet either and he cleverly used the momentum of Kissane to pick off punches and trade blows in an entertaining contest.

Having trained at Ryland Boxing Club over the winter months, the panel had ample experience of sparring and the more seasoned boxers even pitted their wits against fighters from boxing clubs in Kerry and Tipperary.

Although no official results were announced, one of those contests provided one of the funniest moments of the night.

Pearse ‘The Cat’ O’Neill took on Michael Burke from Thurles Boxing Club. The huge size and reach of O’Neill put him at an advantage against Burke, the Aghada man employing the trusty ‘windmill’ technique to rain blows with both arms down on his opponent for most of the three rounds.

Despite the power and frequency of the blows, Burke stood firm and showed his ability to weather the ‘windmill’ storm.

In all, there were 16 bouts between members of the Cork senior football panel, in aid of the Cobh based ‘Breaking the Silence’ suicide awareness charity.

Liam ‘Mighty Mouse’ Shorten and Sean ‘The Wire’ Kiely started the night and, despite ceding five inches in height, the tenacious Shorten gave as good as he got against the unorthodox style of Kiely.

Donncha ‘The Viper’ O’Connor and Kevin ‘The Hulk’ Harrington’s bout was a humdinger. Both boxers tore into each other from the start, style went out the window as the pair swung for their lives.