PADDY BARNES AND Michael Conlan were both winners in their last 16 boxing bouts at Glasgow 2014 and are both one fight away from securing Commonwealth Games medals.
Conlan beat India’s Shiva Thapa on a unanimous points decision. Sporting a sizeable bump following a cut to his head in his previous fight, Conlan landed crucial head shots but was never able to get too far ahead of his opponent, who is ranked third in the world.
Speaking after his win, Conlan told BBC: “It was a tough fight from start to finish. I was very nervous today, because he’s a very skilful fighter and I knew it could be my hardest fight of the competition. I outsmarted him.
“It wasn’t my best performance but there’s plenty more to come from me. Gold’s the only thing in my eyes.”
Barnes’ victory was the more emphatic of the two Belfast boxers. The flyweight was on top from the first bell and secured a TKO win in the third round over Tanzanian opponent Hamadi Furahisha.
Barnes and Conlan join the Northern Ireland quartert of flyweight Ruairi Dalton, lightweight Joe Fitzpatrick, light-welter Sean Duffy and light-heavyweight Sean McGlinchy in the last eight.
Generally speaking the better intercounty players and teams have always been well looked after work wise, but this is a significant step in the right direction for more to be done throughout. Good stuff.
You have prob the top 5 to 10 players in both codes in the country who have a profile that can be monetised in terms of sponsorship etc Then you have a layer of maybe another 40 to 60 of the bigger counties that benefit in one way or another in terms of securing work etc. However hopefully schemes like this bring benefit to a broader base. It’s interesting that it took the gpa to bring in outside charitable funding to support this, why couldn’t the gaa themselves think of a more self sustaining form of funding.