Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane may have more than just a passing interest as he scans the results from the Olympic boxing championship in Sydney this week.

Keane once stood beside a young Michael Roche, from the Kilcurry area in Cork, to receive a Munster youth award in recognition of exceptional merit in underage competition.

Their careers have long since diverged, with Keane, once a useful juvenile boxer in his own right, going on to find fame and fortune with Manchester United and the Republic Ireland.

At 26, Roche has yet to achieve international recognition. But tomorrow he hopes to take the first, tentative step in that direction when he climbs through the ropes for an appointment with the Turkish boxer Sirat Karagollu at the start of his challenge for the Olympic 71kg title.

In doing so, he will ensure that, after long weeks and months of uncertainty, Ireland's proud tradition of enriching every Olympic boxing series since 1948 remains unbroken. Roche arrived in the promised land after outpointing a Czech, Josef Frecer, at Halle in March.

That in itself was something of a surprise for, with respect to the Sunnyside southpaw, at least two of his team-mates appeared to hold better chances of making the cut. In the end, however, Roche's ability to jab and run would prove more productive under the new scoring system.

Roche is the first to acknowledge his style is never likely to make him a box-office attraction but then they said much the same of Dick McTaggart on the last occasion the Olympics were held in Australia in 1956. Not only did the Scottish lightweight go on to win gold - he also ended up named as the best boxer of the Games.

"Counter-punching southpaws don't usually please crowds but if that's what it takes to win, why change," he says with the logic of a man who has won significantly more bouts than he's lost in almost 20 years in the sport.

Given that his coach, Kieran Joyce, a former European championship semi-finalist, built his repuation as a big, explosive puncher, Roche's modus operandi is, to say the least, mildly surprising.

Business commitments have prevented Joyce from travelling to Sydney but in Nicholas Cruz, the respected Cuban coach who played a big part in Michael Carruth's success in Barcelona in 1992, he has a worthy replacement in his corner. In the knowing ways of his trade, Cruz declines to make bold predictions about the outcome of a bout which Turkish officials, no less than those in the Irish camp, admit is going to be very close.

"Very often the hardest contest in these championships is the first," he said. "There is no current form to work on and when you add that to the nervousness of men who have waited a long time for this chance, anything can happen.

"Michael has prepared well, however, and if he settles early, he will be difficult to catch in the last round."

Roche, who owes much to his employers, Warner Lambert, in permitting him to train full time, has been based in Australia since early last month. And he says he's never been better prepared to go and do the business.

"It's been a long haul but now the work is done and I want to get on with it," he said. "I've waited all my life for this chance and I don't intend to waste it.

"To be honest, I know very little about Karagollu, apart from the fact that like myself, he's a southpaw. But I recall another good Turkish boxer taking part in the qualifiers and taking a line through him, I have to respect Karagollu.

"But the bottom line is that if I'm disciplined and stick to my own fight plan, I can win."

Cuba's Juan Hernandez, who Michael Carruth beat in the welterweight final in Barcelona, is in the same half of the draw as the Corkman and the prospect of meeting him in the quarter-finals fills Roche with enthusiasm.

"I remember that in my first two years in the national senior championships I came up against Billy Walsh and Michael Carruth and, not surprisingly, lost both times," he says.

"Now that both have retired, I'm the only one still sweating it out in the gym. But nothing would please me more than to have the chance of repeating what Michael did in Barcelona and beat Hernandez."