Keegan confident Egan and Joyce can deliver

GARY KEEGAN who, as Director of High Performance, has masterminded Ireland’s current Olympic campaign is predicting wins for light heavyweight Kenneth Egan and light welterweight John Joe Joyce at the Worker’s Gymnasium tomorrow.

The pair highlight a nice mix of experience and youth that is the hallmark of this Irish team and victory would put both into the last eight in their weights in the tournament and just one contest away from an Olympic medal.

Egan faces a somewhat unusual campaigner in that Bahram Muzaffer made little or no impression in any of the qualifying tournaments. Ukrainian light heavyweight Ismail Sillakh, ranked fourth in the world, should be here but was banned after a doping violation. He was replaced by the first reserve, Anastasios Berdesis of Greece, but he, too, failed a drugs test and Muzaffer was thrown an Olympic lifeline.

“And we did not think that the Turk would be ready in time for the Olympic Games either because he is just recovering from a broken hand,” Gary Keegan said. “I watched him box an Armenian at the world championships. The Armenian is a southpaw and very similar to Kenny (Egan).

“Muzaffer is a tricky opponent. He is a bit of a fighter who likes to do much of his boxing against the ropes. But Kenny is very experienced and he won’t be drawn into that situation.”

At 26, Egan can proudly boast of his contribution to Irish boxing including nine national senior titles, European bronze medal, three European Union gold medals and a whole collection of multi-nations medals.

At 20 years of age, Joyce, who boxes out of Dominic O’Rourke’s St Michael’s club in Athy, already holds three Irish senior titles (14 titles in all) and emerged as one of the stars of the qualifying tournament in Athens where he survived a hometown decision against a Greek on count-back before going on to beat Siphai Harun (Germany) 27-12 in the semi-finals and stopping Egidijus Kavaliauskas (Lithuania) in the final.

“I think he really came of age in that tournament,” Gary Keegan said. “And then what can we say about last weekend. Kenny gave us a great start and then Johnny outsmarted Gyula Kate who had beaten him three times previously in a very good contest.

“And I would see Johnny going further in this tournament. Felix Diaz was not overly impressive at the world championship in Chicago where he finished 17th. He was ninth in the lightweights in Athens and he won a gold medal at the Golden Belt tournament in Romania this year.

“I fancied the Armenian against him in the first round here but he came through that bout 11-4 and he looked dangerous and you would not want to get involved with him.”

Kenneth Egan will go into the ring at about 8.15am (Irish time) while John Joe Joyce will box at about 1pm (Irish time).

Keegan failed to get accredited for those games but he was able to attend John Joe Nevin’s contest last night when Finbarr Kirwan, the Irish Sports Council’s Performance Manager, got him a ticket.