Connacht Boxing Champions

          The Loughrea boxing club had one of its largest representations at the Connacht boys boxing championships, which took place in Westport last weekend. After two full days of competition, two boxers qualified to compete at the home of Irish amateur boxing in the National Stadium in Dublin. At Boy2 50Kg Robert Kerins was a comprehensive winner on points over the Sligo champion Sean Wynne from the St. Joseph's club. The accurate hitting and direct style of Kerins secured the Connacht title and ensured that he went one better than last year. In the Boy3 44Kg division, Matthew Connelly had two hard contests to secure the title. In the semi-final he outscored Shane Groarke from Swinford by three points and in the final he renewed acquaintances with Patrick Gibbons from Oughterard who scored a deserved points victory over Connelly earlier in the year. Connelly learned from this defeat and won by four points in the final. Both boys will now represent Connacht in the All-Ireland championships at Easter.
         The clubs representation could have been doubled if Conall Whelan had not got a very dubious decision given against him and Martin Lawrence managed to make his proper weight division. Other boxers at the championships included Ryan Dervan, Ted Mongan and Martin Ward who all had semi-final victories only to lose out in the final and Sean Sweeney and Darragh Broderick who were unlucky to draw very strong opponents in their first year of boxing.