Irish Boxing

That squad should pick up quite a few medals.

 

Heard they are selling quite well, id say will be near enough a sell out

 

Andy Lee is now ranked 7th in the WBC after picking up the NABF title against Bunema

 

I think your telling fibs there mate:nono

 

If a show of this quality,price and location doesnt sell out we may as well throw our hat at it lads.

 

Big news on the Euro amature front is that Russia are sending a shadow squad. Now mind Ireland's second string might be Burnett, Phelan, McCullough, DO Joyce, Hickey, JJ Joyce, O'Kane, Egan, McCarthy and Turner so just imagine that Russia are even stronger in depth than us. Still it might open up gold prospects for several of our boxers.

 

In the next few days I intend to inflict my views on the upcoming euro championships on this thread, starting with the 49kg division.
My Euro Ratings;
1 BARNES
2 Ayrapetyan Russia
3 Mamishzade Azer
4 Galonov Russia
5 de la Neive Spain
6 Pehlivan Turkey
7 Shkarubo Ukraine
8 Alizade Azerbaijan
9 Lakato Hun
10 Beccu France

Paddy will be a big favourite and rightly so as his chief opponents are the guys he beat to win the last Euros. Ayrapetyan is not going as Russia hold back their number ones for the Worlds(a good idea?) and the number three from Azerbaijan who Paddy beat in the Moscow games fina, Mamishzade won his national final at fly. If he doesn't go at l/fly then he'll be replaced by Alizade, the guy that Burnett split the world and junior Olympic gold and silver between them.
He's the best of the young crop as well as Lakatos from Hungary, while Pehlivan, the Turk and de la Nieve representing Spain, could all figure. Soghomonyan, the new kid from Armenia and Charlie Edwards from England will probably ruffle a few feathers.
I'm assuming that old warriors like Danyelia (Armenia) and Masczyk (Poland) will no longer be there.
Still for me Paddy at his best will win with the Russian Galonov the big danger. The only caviat I have is that Barnes needs to get the competitive ring-rust out of his system with a handier first fight or two.

 

nice work matt... paddy 4 gold is no cert... but r best bet:good

 

lads anyone know a cheap hotel/bnb in galway for next weekend?

 

looking forward to it Matt

 

:roll::roll::roll:

 

Very good article in this month's Ring Magazine on the recent passing of Gil Clancy. Like the author of the article I salute Clancy with a nice halfin of whiskey.:good

 

The Pillo on the Headford roundabout is cheap travelodge type.

 

Euro fly-52kg
1 Aloyan Russia
2 Yafai UK
3 Oubaali France
4 Balakshin Russia
5 Abdulhamidov Azerbaijan
6 Picardi Italy
7 Chigayev Ukraine
8 Conlon Ireland
9 Cioaca Romania
10 Formanek Slovakia

Aloyan, the big favorite wont be at the games so it's all to play for, the Azerbaijan beat Dec Geraghty 9-1 so he's good as is the Russian rep Balakshin, a three time Euro champ but he's 31 now and slipping. The Frenchman was JJ Nevins partner at Paris United and made the individual 54kg final and Picardi lost to Nevin big-time in the WSB, while Yafai is my pick with the young Romanian the dark horse.
Last year Conlon under-performed in the Commonwealth where Stubbs won and got robbed by the follies of the computer scoring system in the Ulsters only last January but the word from Ulster is that he was a bit special. He sure proved it, winning the toughest of all weights in the Nationals(Molloy, Phelan, Burnett, Geraghty!) and has been unbeaten since beating Stubbs among others. I think he can beat anyone up to Yafai, hope I'm right it would be some fairy-tale.

 

Some stuff on today's press conference at the National Stadium, that includes a video of Billy Walsh running through the squad names.

http://www.greenjab.ie/amateur/european-championships-press-conference/

http://www.greenjab.ie/media/turkey-bound-for-euro-glory/