A knockout evening for Saunders Snr

SPORTS does not get much more individual than two men throwing punches at each other on a roped-off piece of canvas, but a night of boxing at the Hardwick Hall Hotel ended with a celebration of teamwork.

Jeff Saunders Snr was in the ring at the end of it watching two of his fighters show off their first professional belts.

Billy Snaith had taken Dan Cope’s Northern Area welterweight title and his son Jeff Jnr has an International Challenger title to celebrate.

The show had been a co-promotion between Fighting Chance and Steve Wraith, who will now join the Gateshead operation.

“It’s been an unbelievable night for us,” said Saunders Jnr after stopping Chris Truman in the fifth round.

“Billy’s put in some rounds at the gym and worked hard for this. Billy is the real deal and this shows it.

“He’s beaten the top kid in the North East at his weight so massive respect to Billy.”

A brutal body shot had stopped Saunders Jnr’s work for the night after five rounds – if not his dad’s. He was back in Snaith’s corner a quarter of an hour later.

“It was a textbook shot,” said the Sedgefield light-heavyweight.

“That’s the result of a lot of hard work in the gym. They say practice makes perfect but practice makes permanent in my eyes.

“I felt he was open to the body shot and as sound as I landed I didn’t think he’d be getting back up.”

The highly-rated 25-year-old will now push for an English title and plenty more besides.

Snaith’s match-up with Cope was a real grudge match but afterwards the Ferryhill man paid tribute to the champion he deposed 98-93 on points.

“I’ve never had ten hard rounds before – I have done now,” he said.

“Daniel Cope’s fit. You try and have a breather and he keeps coming.”

In only his fifth professional fight Snaith made much the brighter start and although the later rounds were pretty tight with lots of grappling and few punches landing, he did enough to ensure he was always going to get the decision.