Bernard Dunne open to Dean Gardiner return as boxers target Bulgarian test

The 32-year old caught everyone off guard last month with the news that he was quitting the ring. He was just two fights away from sealing a place at the Olympic Games

Bernard Dunne at the launch of the ‘Indeed Career Coach’ programme. Picture: Inpho/Morgan Treacy

Bernard Dunne knows what it is to contemplate a comeback and the IABA's high performance director insists that the door remains open for Dean Gardiner if the super-heavyweight changes his mind about retirement and plots a fresh course for the Tokyo Olympics.

The 32-year old caught everyone off guard last month with the news that he was quitting the ring. He was just two fights away from sealing a place at the Games but the combination of a young family and a third-level course prompted a change in direction.

“Dean knows the door is always open for him and he knows he can come back,” said Dunne this week. “I know what it’s like when you step away from sport, the thoughts that go through your head, and sometimes you realise you miss it.

“I’ve told him if that feeling happens to not be worried about calling, just let us know straight away and we’d have him back and bring him in. He’s been a part of our team for a number of years now. It’s more important to make sure we look after him if he wanted to come in. Nothing else.”

Dunne, who won and lost his WBA super bantamweight world title within six months in 2009, retired shortly after losing the belt to Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym and found out for himself how difficult it can be to adapt to life's new surroundings outside the ring.

It was this very Rubicon that he was addressing this week when speaking at the virtual launch of the Indeed Career Coach, a programme which hopes to tackle the core issues elite athletes encounter as they transition from the ring to Civvy Street.

“A lot of the Career Coaching has come from a lot of the failings I went through,” he explained. “I got to the end of my career, I didn’t actually have a plan. There wasn’t a plan in place and I came very close to going back to boxing, going back to fighting.

“That was through a lack of belief and lack of value in myself, not realising that I had other skills that could be used. 

I thought the only thing I could do of value was being a boxer, whereas there were so many other things and skills I could use from being involved in sport.

One obvious step for many of Ireland's best amateurs is the pro game and the BBC's Panorama programme revealed this week that Daniel Kinahan is still advising some boxers attached to the MTK Global management agency which he co-founded nine years ago.

Kinahan has no criminal convictions but he has been named as the head of an international drugs network by an Irish High Court judge and his involvement in boxing in general is now attracting ever greater scrutiny and criticism.

MTK have reiterated the statement made in 2017 that Kinahan no longer has any ties with the company but the Dubai-based Dubliner was said to have stepped away from the sport entirely having helped Tyson Fury to agree a fight deal with Anthony Joshua last year.

The Panorama programme suggested otherwise.

Dunne had yet to view the documentary when he spoke on Tuesday but he did say that the amateur and professional games could be more “hands-on in looking after the rules and regulations” when asked about those involved in managing and advising fighters.

“We need to make sure that our athletes are given the opportunity to succeed in our sport and achieve what they want to achieve in the right way,” he added.

Boxing's image clearly hasn't been helped by all this and, as Dunne said, the pity of it is that it detracts from so much of the good work being done, not least by his own high-performance squad which has won 21 major championship medals in the last three years of competition.

That run of success has obviously been halted by the pandemic and played havoc with Olympic preparations. The hope is that the male and female squads can make it to a planned multi-nations tournament in Bulgaria next month to shake off the rust.

Brendan Irvine was the only Irish boxer to book his place at the European Olympic qualifiers in London last spring before the tournament was paused because of Covid-19. An April date seems most likely for the resumption but where that will be is uncertain.

“We can only control what we can control,” said Dunne. “We've tried to be as honest and as clear with the team as possible in terms of what's going on."

- Visit www.indeedcareercoach.ie