Lee heads the Irish march to finals

ANDY LEE was a comfortable if not impressive winner of his middleweight semi-final at the Four Nations boxing championships in Liverpool last night.

He will lead five Irish boxers into tonight's finals after an evening of mixed fortunes for the eight in action.

The Limerick southpaw was having his third fight in three weeks when he went in against Steve Mullins from England. His opponent proved no match for Lee who ended up with a clearcut 21-2 victory.

He had been hoping to step up another gear after winning his third senior title last Friday night but Hugh Joyce and Eamon O'Kane were probably slightly better opposition than the Englishman, who was runner-up in the ABA championships but was called up when the champion had to cry off with an injury.

"At the end of it all Andy was not all that happy with his performance," Gary Keegan, the High Performance Director, said. "But it should be remembered that this was only his third serious contest since the Olympics and he is really only getting back into it now.

"He looked sharp tonight too sharp for Mullins and he scored with some good, accurate punches. It was another four rounds under his belt and he will benefit from that alone."

There were some exciting performances all round. Light flyweight Conor Ahern put some big punches together to outpoint Mo Nasir from Wales 18-12 in a lively semi-final.

There were times when it appeared as if the Dubliner might stop the Welshman but Nasir battled on gamely, gave as good as he got and was in the fight right through to the end.

Karl Brabazon had caused one of the big upsets of the national championships when he beat the defending champion, Henry Coyle from Geesala, and then went on to claim the welterweight title for himself with a close victory over Oisin Kelly from Portlaoise.

And he carried that form with him to Liverpool where, last night, he outpointed Leon Troct from Wales 38-17 in an action-packed semi-final.

Kenneth Egan, the most experienced boxer on the Irish team, took the short route against the Scottish middleweight Kenny Anderson. He was always on top, caught his man with some big punches and finished him off with a big right hand in the third round. Anderson was never going to beat the count.

The fight of the night was at featherweight where Eric Donovan, who stepped up a division to claim that title at this year's championships, went in against Damien Edwards from Wales.

They battled it out, toe-to-toe, throughout the contest and they were level on points going into the final 10 seconds of the bout when the Athy man conceded two hits and lost 25-23 but it was a contest that could have gone either way.

Young David Oliver Joyce lost another exciting contest at bantamweight where he met one of England's most experienced internationals, Nick McDonald, and every punch in the book was thrown before the Athy youngster went under 36-26 to his older opponent.

Carl Frampton from Belfast, another new champion, lost his contest 26-11 to another seasoned international from England, Stewart Langley. Super heavyweight Cathal McMonagle, also from Belfast, was knocked out in the second round of his contest by David Price from England.

The five winners will be joined in tonight's finals by the third boxer from St. Michael's ABC in Athy on the team, David Joyce, who won the light welterweight title last week.