Proud as punch
Young Durie’s boxers show up well at contest
Durie’s ABC had five boxers in action last weekend at Ravenscraig Sports Centre, boxing in the Scottish Intermediate Championships.
Saturday saw senior boxers Lewis Connolly (East Kilbride) 60kgs and Kyle McNiel (Castlemilk) 64kgs representing Duries.
First in was Lewis against Edinburgh club A.A.A and Fabrino Di Bastino and this was a close contest with different styled boxers.
The AAA boxer was pressing and being aggressive, while Lewis moved and counter punched.
It went to the five judges and came back a split decision for the AAA man by 4/1, but Lewis put up a show and was unlucky.
Next was Castlemilk lad Kyle McNiel, 18, against Edinburgh’s Army boxing team fight Mathew Beattie.
Beattie came out hard and fast, catching Kyle in the corner and looking for a stoppage. But the Rutherglen boxer weathered the storm, showed great resilience and came back hard at the end of the first round, forcing the ref to give the Edinburgh boxer a standing eight count.
The second and third rounds were fought toe to toe, but Beattie got a public warning for bringing the head too low which didn’t help going to the score cards.
When it came back McNiel was the winner by unanimous decision and into the semi final. On Sunday Hassan Saleem, 16, was in a straight final against Taylor McVey (Hamilton abc).
The Rutherglen boxer boxed really well but all five judges gave it to McVey, with Hassan taking the silver.
Next in was Cambuslang 48kg Yaseen Nawaz, 13, in against a good lad from the borders club Valleyfield abc.
He was a good bit more experienced than Yaseen, but the Duries boxer more than held his own until the end of the first round and coach Archie Durie decided to withdraw the Rutherglen boxer as he had damaged his wrist during the round.
Yaseen had to settle for a silver medal.
Next was McNiel,18, who was the most unfortunate Durie’s boxer of the day when he fought a semi final against Priestfield abc boxer Ali Tamman and was on the wrong side of a 3/2 split decision from the judges
It was a close fight between two cracking boxers and could have gone either way.
It was Duries 69kgs Sinead Price Greene in next, against Bellahouston abc girl Shannon Lawson.
Right from the start Sinead was straight across the ring to throw big right hand shots, catching Shannon with clean head shots.
The crowd loved this fight as Shannon tried to come back into it in the third round, but Sinead had done plenty of work in the first two rounds to win by unanimous decision and become intermediate Scottish champion, adding this to her Scottish novice title she had won a year or so ago.
Head coach Archie said: “We entered five boxers this year and came back with a gold, and two silvers, and great performances from all our boxers who took part,
“Sinead was fantastic. Right from the off, she wanted that title and went straight for her opponent giving 100 per cent and getting her gold medal in return.
“Kyle McNiel has to be singled out for his two fights against top boys. He won yesterday and lost a 3/2 split which could have gone either way.
“I thought he had just edged it,but that’s boxing
“For the whole weekend I was proud as punch and look forward to the upcoming different district and national championships over the next two months.”