Sweet revenge for Murphy in Junior Cadet C’ship decider
NEILSTOWN Boxing Club’s Ryan Murphy exacted sweet revenge for his loss to Callum McGillin in their All-Ireland Boy Three Final encounter back in April after he beat his Two Castles rival for the Junior Cadet 72kg prize in the National Stadium recently.
The victory also means, Ryan will be back competing on the European Schoolboy Championships stage for the second year running when he travels out with the Ireland panel to Georgia next month.
Ryan Murphy with Brendan Shovlin of Neilstown Boxing Club after his victory in the Junior Cadet 72kg Final in the National Stadium.
Murphy, having emerged on the wrong side of a 3-2 split decision against McGillin in the Boy Three decider, was determined to leaving nothing to chance this time around and took a unanimous 5-0 victory last weekend.
“In the first round Ryan put the pressure on” said Neilstown Head Coach Ger Fleming. “His opponent was looking to keep it long-range. It was close, but I think Ryan just edged it.
“In the second round he caught him with a couple of good punches- right hands and left hooks.
“He upped the ante in the third and caught him with some more shots and really hurt him with about 10 seconds to go” he recalled.
The victory took Murphy’s national title haul to four having gone all the way at Boy One and Two degree as well as earning two Junior Cadet honours.
Indeed he was the only Boy Two competitor to win one in last year’s competition and so was the youngest member on the Ireland squad that travelled out to Bulgaria for the European Schoolboys where he lost out in the last eight to Ukrainian opponent Mykola Serov.
Coach Fleming believes his young protégé has every chance of improving on that this time round saying “he has that extra year under his belt and that experience should serve him well.”
So far Neilstown have won three of the five National Championship Finals they have contested and also boast a current European Junior silver medallist in Winnie Christina McDonagh who also won gold in last year’s European Schoolgirls Championships in Bulgaria and earned her place among the nominees for ‘The Echo Amateur Sports Star of the Year’ Award.
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