Egan, Sutherland head Irish challenge

THE five-man Irish boxing team will break camp in Manila today and head for Mianyang City in China for the world boxing championships which get under way on Sunday.

The five boxers have been at a training camp in the Philippines since November 2 preparing with some of the other top nations and, according to High Performance Director Gary Keegan, are in superb shape.

“We have been training here with Italy, Germany, France, Australia, the Philippines, Brazil and Sri Lanka,” he said. “It gave us an opportunity to spar with some boxers from those nations but, obviously, we were selective and only took part when it was beneficial to our lads.