A NUMBER OF Irish MMA’s best prospects were in action last night as the 3 Arena hosted Bamma’s first ever Irish event.
In the main event, 22-year-old Frenchman Tom ‘Fire Kid’ DuQuesnoy retained his featherweight title — defeating Manchester’s Brendan Loughnane by split decision.
Earlier in the night, middleweight Paul Byrne, who has recently moved from Drogheda to join up with coach John Kavanagh at SBG, remained unbeaten after winning his sixth consecutive fight. Byrne caught Conor Cooke with a ferocious head kick in the first round.
There was bad news for his team-mate as Christopher Jacquelin submitted Chris Fields with a triangle in the second round.
Elsewhere, SBG’s Sinead Kavanagh, a five-time national boxing champion, was hugely impressive as she took just 15 seconds to stop Hatice Ozyurt in her first professional bout.
Ballymena’s Alan Philpott claimed a split decision win over Regis Sugden, while Limerick fighter Catherine Costigan tapped out in the first round after Celine Haga put her in an armbar.
Bamma 22 results
- Tom DuQuesnoy def Brendan Loughnane via decision (split) after 3 rounds
- Chistopher Jacquelin def Chris Fields via submission (tap out) in Round 2
- Alan Philpott def Regis Sugden via decision (split) after 3 rounds
- Celine Haga def Catherine Costigan via submission (verbal) in Round 1
- Jack McGann def Jack Grant via TKO (strikes) in Round 1
- Paul Byrne def Conor Cooke via TKO (strikes) in Round 1
- Marc Diakiese def Rick Selvarajah via KO in Round 1
- Kane Mousah def Myles Price via unanimous decision after 3 rounds
- Sinead Kavanagh def Hatice Ozyurt via TKO (strikes) in Round 1
- Frans Mlambo def Darren O’Gorman via TKO (strikes) in Round 1
- Lukasz Parobiec def Jonathan Dargan via TKO (strikes) in Round 1
- Rhys McKee def John Redmond via submission (tap out) in Round 1
- Dylan Tuke def Adam Caffrey via submission (tap out) in Round 1
- Paul Craig def Karl Moore via submission (tap out) in Round 2
- Tim Wilde def Stephen Coll via majority decision after 3 rounds
- Mark Andrew def Sean Tobin via submission (tap out) in Round 3
- Patrick Wixted def Conor Dillon via TKO (strikes) in Round 2
- Alexandre Liete def Gerrard Gilmore via submission (tap out) in Round 2
- Keith Coady def Arnaud Dos Santos via TKO (doctor stoppage) in Round 1
He’s talking through his hoop. We were bad and getting worse during Mick’s last stint aswell. The standard of player has dropped drastically over the last ten years.
@Tom O’ Donnell: agreed, a bit of a plank sewing it into Kenny.
Maybe if we had a decent player on the left side of the pitch, we would qualified for more tournaments.
Plus, it wasn’t like McCarthy had gotten us to a play off, the play off was guaranteed before he was appointed.
McClean only coming out with this now tells you everything you need to know about him as player and as a person
@Adrian: While i do agree with you that the only reason McClean is bringing this up is that he has an axe to grind with Kenny and it is indeed bad form. We were also guaranteed that playoff spot, however what he said is he thinks that if we still had McCarthy there we would have had a better chance in qualifying. I think he is absolutely right regardless of his motives. If McCarthy was there we would have probably dug out a result in Slovakia, they were there for the taking, a poor side at the time.
@John Clifford: we lost that on penalties so being ‘hard to beat’ had nothing to do with that night.
We weren’t hard to beat tonight
@Tony Metcalfe: Slovakia were awful that night and we just didn’t take the game too them. Tactically Kenny got it wrong as he did though out his tenure. A manager with more bottle would have taken the game to them. I know him saying “hard to beat” doesn’t make sense, however it just stands that a more experienced manager would have got the job done that night, away from the fact that FAI should have let him see out the qualification campaign. It was bad form on all counts.
@Tony Metcalfe: we weren’t hard to beat tonight but that was down to formation (no three in the midfield), no high press, playing wing backs when we don’t have any decent ones, no intensity etc etc….basically when you have such limited players, you need a manager that is exceptionally good tactically. O’Shea is not that man , he needs to learn his trade elsewhere (lower level) before looking at a gig like this.
@John Clifford: I think you’ve memory holed that game a little. We had better chances than Slovakia, Conor Hourihane absolutely ballsed up a huge chance in front of goal. We did take it to them, but finishing let us down.
It’s hard to see us qualifying for anything for the foreseeable unfortunately.
@Ray Ridge: the Galway of international soccer maybe Ray?!
@Joe Kennedy: Both way off the top sides im afraid.
@Ray Ridge: pessimism correct on the soccer. But definitely lay off the rugby. Small country population wise and it’s our 4th sports. Always there there abouts winning six nations and can put it up to all blacks and springboks off this world. Call a spade a spade
@Gary Galligan: it’s not pessimism, it’s realism. When we win a knock-out game in the big one, then maybe.
@Gary Galligan: . We’re the only one of the nine major test playing nations never to have won a knockout game at the World Cup. There have been ten Rugby World Cup tournaments. Granted we were exceptional in the last World Cup but our record in what is by far the biggest tournament in world rugby is truly abysmal.
@Gary Galligan: How do you make out it’s our fourth sport considering there are more playing Soccer in the country than both GAA codes and Rugby, put it another way Soccer is the most popular sport participation wise in the country.
@Leonard Barry: . He means rugby is our fourth sport in terms of participation.
@Richard Ford: won last 2 six nations
@Ray Ridge: The Jimmy Sloyan of The 42. Insightful
@Gary Galligan: . Yup and delighted to see it but the Rugby World Cup is the really big one.
I don’t think that there will be many people trying to steal James McClean’s intellectual property!!!.
We don’t have the players, never mind manager. Ffs.
Wonder how many other players felt same way playing under Kenny?
@Shane: This stuff always amazes me. Is there no senior group amongst the players to be able to voice concerns like his to the management..
Kennys Reign was a disaster He should have been sacked after Luxemburg Beat us instead of being allowed to bring us down the rankings to sixty four In
The world. Everything has gone wrong. J o shea has been treated very poorly the 4 friendly arranged by the FAI have been too difficult.It’s like they want us to fail.