some hometown scoring goin on here
Link? I canât get the one on this thread to work.
Lost but still a fine achievement to get European silver.
gallant effort from oneill ,was always going to be up against it espcially going behind in the second,the russian seemed a lot harder puncher,great tournement for ireland 1 gold1 silver 3 bronze is pretty good going
One gold.
Credit to Billy Walshâs professionalism and dedication to the boxers under his charge after the treatment of him by the IABA recently. 
We must have a fantastic chance of at least one gold in London. The lads should get great support as well. As close to a home Olympics as weâll ever get.
katy taylors a banker for a gold in london sid ,paddy barnes proably as well
Boxing highlights are on at 11pm.
Christ, OâNeillâs fight against the local was harshly scored. A few clearly landed punches by him werenât awarded points. The Russian probably deserved to edge it but it was closer than 16-7 suggests.
Faythe Harriers and Sarsfields oozing out of the great Billy Walsh here. 
Article from last Sundayâs Tribune by Malachy Clerkin:
[b]From Russia with love
Away from all the infighting, Billy Walsh tells Malachy Clerkin how success is the only thing that matters
Out of the shadows: the man behind the Moscow medals, Billy Walsh and Irish amateur boxing are back in the news for all the right reasons[/b]
As wartime ebbs, you forge the peace as delicately as you can. That way, you lessen the chances of becoming a casualty yourself. Billy Walsh sits in his office above the champion factory beside the National Stadium on Dublinâs South Circular Road and refuses to be drawn on the messy business of a couple of months past when he was bypassed for the job of High Performance Director for Irish boxing despite the fact that heâd been filling the role unpaid for 18 months already. âIâm the Head Coach of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association,â he says, âand Iâm proud and privileged to have that position. Iâve been part of the IABA since I was seven-years-old and itâs an organisation Iâve always loved. I really have no comment to make.â
This is not surprising. He has kept his counsel ever since the story broke in mid-April that the Irish Sports Council was refusing to fund both the post (which was given to Athy coach Dominic OâRourke) and that of CEO Don Stewart â because of âunhappiness with the procedures usedâ was the official line â with the determination of one of his fighters refusing to lose. The Tribuneâs isnât the first tape recorder he has given a polite rebuff to over the past two months, nor will it be the last. But it is his attitude that no good would come of him washing dirty linen for all to see.
Itâs understandable too, certainly now at a time when multiple sources indicate that an accommodation looks to be close at hand. It looks increasingly likely that after repeated negotiations between the Sports Council and the IABA, Walsh will be left to run the High Performance Unit and OâRourkeâs long service (and in fairness to him, his coaching talents as well) will be recognised with another job in the area of youth development. The two sides are said to have come close to finding a middle point before last weekâs incredible success at the European Championships in Moscow and the hope is that the situation will be settled shortly.
For his part, Walsh is staying well clear of it all and leaving the two bodies to their staring match. His disappointment at not getting the job isnât an emotion he needs to express on tape at all because his influence on the high performance programme is immediately clear to anyone who spends more than 20 minutes in this place with him. Heâs not even supposed to be here today since heâs on overdue post-Moscow time off but he came up from Wexford for the day to sort out various bits and pieces that needed doing. The job still needs taking care of, regardless of the politics hovering over it.
Today is no hardship though. How could it be? Itâs his first day back in the nerve centre since bringing home a gold, a silver and three bronze from Moscow and all anyone wants to do is shake his hand. Five medals is a stunning haul for one expedition and second place in the medals table is a result that, if nothing else, laughs in the face of simple mathematics.
Russia, the only country to finish ahead of them, has over 100,000 senior amateur boxers, Walsh reckons. Ireland has around 70. Over the past few years, Walsh and his high performance unit have done their best to spar with the Russians as many times as possible, to set up training camps over there so as best to access their methods and winning culture. But one day last week, the Russian head coach came over to him and Zaur Antia, his Georgian right-hand man, and said he was very sorry but the director of the Russian Federation wasnât going to allow the Irish team into their gym anymore. âYou guys are too dangerous now,â he said.
Walsh delights in the back-handed compliment because it screams out loud just how far theyâve come. As was pointed out a few times last week, itâs only eight years since a 10-strong Irish team came home from a European Championships in Russia without winning so much as a single bout. But last weekend they flew home with bronze medals for Tyrone McCullough, Eric Donovan and Kenny Egan, a silver for Darren OâNeill and a gold for Paddy Barnes.
Walsh being Walsh, he cracks a grimace for the ones that got away too. Con Sheehen broke his hand in the Prime Ministry Cup in Turkey last month and would surely have had a medal shout only for it. And 2008 World Youth champion Ray Moylette only lost on a double countback to a German fighter who went on to come up short by a single point in the gold medal fight a few days later. Pity.
Still, there was plenty to enjoy. The way 19-year-old McCullough, in his first ever senior international tournament, braved out his semi-final despite breaking his left hand with the very first punch he threw in the fight. That left-hand was the one that had done all the scoring in his earlier fight so he had to figure out a way to score without it for the rest of the fight against his English opponent. He didnât quite manage it but his bronze medal has Walsh purring. âHe has a few technical flaws for us to work on but what an engine,â he says.
Each medal, each performance did his heart good. To see Eric Donovan, an overnight sensation after seven years of trying, picking up a senior international medal after the almighty scrap to get past David Oliver Joyce in the Nationals. Or the way Darren OâNeill dug in and persevered â not just in the ring in Moscow but over the past five years too when it sometimes looked like heâd be stuck behind Kenny Egan and Darren Sutherland forever. The way he stood up and went toe-to-toe in the final, that bravery that made the best fight of the tournament not just possible but inevitable. âThatâs Darren,â he says. âIf you knew his people, if you knew what he comes from, you wouldnât be a bit surprised.â
As for Egan, itâs as important to Walsh that his Olympic silver medallist has found peace with himself now as it is that he won another medal. Theyâre brothers more than coach and pupil by this stage and while Walsh has always been big on personal responsibility, both he and Gary Keegan have admitted that the one thing they didnât plan well enough for going to Beijing in 2008 was how to manage success if it came back with them. Thereâs no denying that Kenny Egan burned out in the flames that met him when he arrived home. Moscow felt like a rebirth.
âKenny came back very happy with what he achieved over there,â says Walsh. âHe has come through a lot of personal issues in the past year and this was probably the first time since Beijing that he really felt good about himself as a boxer and felt like he had left his problems behind him. That bronze medal for him was nearly as good as Paddy Barnesâs gold because he was coming from a long way back. It was very important for him to remind himself that he still has it.â
Barnes was the one who took top spot on the podium, of course, and there was something of Eganâs regeneration in his triumph too. There was a sweetness about the fact that Moscow was the first time that all four surviving Olympians from 2008 were away at a tournament together since Beijing, a sadness too about the memory of the fifth man. But like Egan and Darren Sutherland, Barnes had lost his way for a while after the Olympics. Heâd struggled to handle expectations and Walsh reckons he stopped learning for a time too.
There was actually a real doubt over Barnesâs participation in Moscow after they found that he needed a hernia operation around 10 weeks ago. A full-blown surgery would have left him out of action for six weeks so he went to England for micro-surgery instead. Nothing like a little brush with adversity to bring out the warrior in the little Belfast fighter.
âHeâs quite a shy individual but thereâs no doubt about it â heâs a fiery boxer. What he has we would never take away from him. We just need to control it a bit better. And Paddy has worked on that himself. But heâs a great lad with great heart and he works so hard. His weight division is so hard because he has to keep his weight down to 48kg and so he can be a bit quiet and intense. But he was smiling afterwards alright. Once he knew he could eat proper food again, he was delighted.â
Nobody was more delighted than his coach though. A week like he just had makes everything worthwhile. No amount of infighting or back-biting or decentskinmanship in the IABA can mask the excellence of the job Walsh is doing. Indeed, itâs nearly comical that the very idea should never even have been raised.
mclerkin@tribune.ie
June 20, 2010
Definitely the best thing youâve ever posted on her.
Heâs as good a man as ye have down there, and ye should be rightly proud of him.
Disastrous news if Walsh goes less than a year before Rio. Surely something can be sorted out?
Boxing bombshell as head coach Billy Walsh quits for US
Vincent Hogan
27/08/2015 | 02:30
Shock as Ireland head boxing coach Billy Walsh leaves his position for a new job in America
Irelandâs Olympic boxing prospects have been dealt a crushing blow with news of head coach Billy Walshâs imminent departure to a new post in America.
The 52-year-old Wexford man, who has effectively run Irish boxingâs High Performance programme since the Beijing Olympics, is to be lost to the sport after an extraordinary sequence of events in recent days.
The Irish Sports Council believed that a package had been agreed with the Irish Amateur Boxing Association last weekend to keep Walsh at home and that that package would be brought for ratification to Tuesday nightâs IABA board meeting.
This did not happen, however, after the association indicated via email on Tuesday that they had changed their stance on virtually every detail of the package.
There has been a long history of tension between those running boxingâs High Performance and the IABA, a fundamental clash of cultures.
But news of Walshâs departure to run the American womenâs programme will be seen as an astonishingly reckless price to pay for that tension.
Walsh has previously been head-hunted by the Australian and English federations, but stayed at home to build the Irish model into one of the most respected in amateur boxing.
I understand that as far back as October, the US sent a delegation to Dublin in a bid to sign him up and, during his Christmas holidays, Walsh took up the offer to go and view their set-up over four days in Colorado Springs.
He was then made an offer dwarfing his current salary in a package that included pension and health insurance, neither of which he gets from the IABA.
In February, he made the association aware of that offer and indicated certain changes he felt needed to be made to the circumstances in which Irish boxingâs High Performance Programme was run.
Fundamental to this was bringing an end to the seemingly endless struggle for autonomy.
Walsh has always sought the right, as head of the programme, to pick Irish teams for competition rather than have selections imposed upon him by committee.
My understanding is that the issues most pressing to him were not related to money.
Yet, every single one of his requests was flatly rejected.
The Sports Council reacted with horror to news of the imminent loss to the sport of a man who, having competed at the Seoul Olympics himself, has now worked the corner for seven Olympic medallists as well as multiples of medal winners at European and World Championships level.
Just two weeks ago, Ireland brought two golds and a bronze home from the European Championships in Bulgaria, the latter secured by Walshâs own nephew, Dean.
The ISC, desperate to keep Walsh at home, last weekend made clear their willingness to fund any new salary for the Irish coach, as well as whatever knock-on increases it might require for other people in the programme.
Billy Walsh was not available to comment last night.
If he wasnât, that story sounds like it came from someone very close to his camp
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People who end up as sports administrators and on exec committees of sporting organisations seen to generally be people you would prefer didnât.
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Keith Duggan is seething about the treatment of Billy Walsh in todayâs Irish Times:
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Good article. Itâll be a disgrace if they lose him.
Good for Walsh. Sounds like a deal heâd be mad to refuse with the financial benefits, pension and health insurance etc. You have to put yourself first sometimes.
What would you change about Bejing Billy?
Kenny Eganâs phone number.
Story was Page 1, 2 and 3 on todayâs Wexford People.
Former Mayor of Wexford Cllr George Lawlor has called on the IABA Board to resign en masse.