St Pauls have started the 2011-2012 boxing season off where they left off on the previous season.
18 months after opening their doors, St. Pauls had their first Ulster Senior champion, Declan Milligan who claimed fly-weight the title aginst the very hight rate Michael Conlon, who has just recently qualified for the Irish olympic boxing team, a dream come true for Michael.
This season, St. Pauls boxers have won a number of local and national titles.
Young Brendan Irvine represented Ireland in against a strong Scottish team, beatting his opponent 18 – 3.
Brendan is training with the School Boys High Performance team in Dublin every 2 weeks and hoping to get more internationals .
New kid on the block, Kain Bittles who started boxing when the new club opened recently competed in his first championships and claimed the Ulster Novices and 3 weeks later claimed the Ulster title at 31KG.
Another young boxer in the club, Barry McReynolds, recently claimed the 33KG Ulster title.
These 2 lads are showing great potential.
Intermediate boxer, Yuri Puskin, claimed his first title at 81KG. Yuri spends alot of time in the gym and his hard work has paid off, he also recently passed his coaching course and is looking forward to assisting the younger kids in their training.
Mark O’Neill has returned after a spell out of the ring, entered the Antrim Intermediates and having reached the final, lost out by 1 point to Anthony O’Rawe from Braid boxing club. Mark assists coaching the younger kids and his talent in and out of the ring has greatly influenced the young boxers he works with.
Gerard Matthews and Dan McShane both entered the Ulster Intermediates and both claimed 2 titles each.
Gerard Matthews and Dan McShane both put alot of hard work in the gym and their wins are due to their hard work and dedication.
James Tennyson claimed the Antrim Intermediate title, beating Commonwealth Bronze medalist Enda Kennedy from Toombe.
James also boxed the highly rated Barry O’Hara in a fantastic 3-round fight, James worked hard and came through in the end with the win.
Colm Markey and Brendan Irvine entered the Ulsters, held in Donnegal, the 2 lads where very impressive, winning the 57KG and 39KG Ulster titles.
St. Pauls entered 3 boxers in the Ulster seniors, Dan McShane, James Tennyson and Gerard Matthews. Dan lost in the quater-finals after suffering a bad nose-bleed. Gerard Matthews boxed the highly rated James Fryers from Immaculata, in an intense 3 rounds of boxing, Gerard Matthews narrowly lost by 2 points in the semi-finals. James Tennyson boxed Paul Hyland from Immaculata, fought hard 3 rounds and in a high-scoring contest, James came out on top with a score of 33 – 16. The final was another St. Pauls – Immaculata contest and in a hard-fought 3 round contest, James Fryers won with a narrow 2 point victory, This was James Tennysons first step up to Senior boxing and was very impressive, his coach believes will be one for the future at high-level boxing.