AFTER a poor start to their international match against Sweden at the National Stadium last night the Irish boxers staged a courageous comeback only to lose 6-4 at the finish.
Then when Cathal O'Grady went into the ring with the sizeable crowd on their toes in expectation of him saving the day, O'Grady was forced to retire two minutes into the first round of his bout against Robert Mukiibi with a bad bruise under his right eye. It affected his sight and left the ringside doctor with no alternative but to order his retirement.
It was a disappointment almost as deep as the boxing itself which did not produce anything to give the impression that Irish boxing was going to make an impact within the foreseeable future.
In fact the evening had started with another disappointment when the Swedish fly weight, Frank Mtabingwa failed to make the weight for his division and the Irish representative Jim Prior refused to take on an opponent considerably heavier than himself.
In the first actual bout of the night Damien McKenna, the Drogheda bantamweight, got Ireland off to a good start by beating Daniel Olsson on a score of 8 to 4 and this lifted the crowd.
Unfortunately things went downhill from then when in the featherweight division Terry Carlisle from the Sacred Heart club was beaten on a score of 10-7 by John Larbi after a courageous performance but one which left nobody in any doubt as to Larbi's superiority.
In the first of two light welterweight bouts John Morrissey from the Sunnyside club in Cork was stopped in the third round by Ton Ton Semakala. In the second round he took a flurry of blows to the head and this culminated in a standing count and the dose was repeated early in the second round with the referee deciding that Morrissey had enough after 45 seconds had elapsed.
In the second light welterweight bout Mark Dillon put up a fine performance to force a standing count for the Swede Thomas Acar to signal what was looking like an Irish revival.
The third round turned into a slugging match with the Swede warned for hitting with the omen glove but in what turned out to be a war the Swede shaded the points total at the end on a score of 18 to 14.
The Irish welterweight champion Niall Gough from Waterford lost no time at all in giving the Irish team some badly needed inspiration and a beautiful left hook in the third minute of the first round dumped Jimmie Antman on the canvas from which he was not able to beat the count with Gough being given a knockout decision.
In the second welterweight bout things did not go so well for Ireland and Ali Kajattab clearly beat Sean Barrett from Cork on a score of 8 to 2.
There followed two light heavyweight bouts with the Westport man Adrian Sheerin scoring a well deserved 22-16 win over Sandor Gaspar but in the second light heavyweight contest Isam Karzoumi beat Tommy Donnelly to give the Swedes a 5-3 lead in the team contest.
In the first of the two heavyweight fights Patrick Deane from Ballina boxed very well throughout what was essentially an uninspiring three rounds but shaded the scoring by 17 points to 15 over the Swede, Jonas Appelgren to leave the score five contests to four with Ireland's banker Cathal O'Grady to come.
Sadly O'Grady ran into some very serious heavy weather early in the fight against Robert Mukiibi and with only a minute and a half elapsed he had significant bruising under both eyes and was ordered to the ropes for a medical examination by the Irish team doctor Sean O'Flanagan.
It emerged afterwards that O'Grady admitted that he had difficulty seeing out of his right eye and in those circumstances the doctor had no alternative but to order O'Grady to retire. It was clearly a very big disappointment for the young man who earlier this year won the European junior heavyweight title and represented Ireland at the Olympic games in Atlanta.
