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Dublin fight club setting sights on New York’s Finest

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Ranging in age from 12-27, the St. Saviour’s Olympic Academy of Boxing team from Dublin will be led by manager Cathal O’Grady, Ireland’s 1996 Olympic heavyweight, who was forced to retire from the ring two years ago with an 18-2 professional record.
The visitors will square off against pugs selected by NYPD boxing trainer Lee Packtor in a show co-promoted by Ron Lovell, former heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney, and Packtor himself at the Irish American Society of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens on March 14.
“We are bringing over a very good squad of boxers, so people can expect to see some world-class boxing,” O’Grady said in a telephone interview from Dublin.
Murphy, who’s 17 and 35-5 in official bouts, is the pick of a litter from a club that O’Grady said has a strong Olympic legacy. “We’ve produced a lot of fighters who’ve competed in the Olympics in the past, myself included,” he noted.
Murphy, who has won national titles at every stop in his young career, is the latest Olympic hopeful to emerge from St. Saviour’s. His dreams of a ticket to the 2004 Games in Athens were bolstered last summer when he scooped the bronze medal at the European Championships for finishing third in his division.
On the continent, a fighter has to place among the top eight in Europe to qualify for the Olympics.
Murphy will be one of three All-Irish title holders in the St. Saviour’s team. The other two are Keith Boyle and Clyde Moran, who are both 16. Boyle, 26-10 in the ring, reigns at 140 pounds, while Moran (35-7) holds the 147 crown.
Three other fighters in the squad, whose youngest member is 12-year-old 80-pounder Keith Doddy, are former national champs. They are 20-year-old Cormac O’Connaire (140), the 25-year-old Kevin Cumiskey (147), and Cathal’s 27-year-old big brother, Sean Og O’Grady (178).
Young Doddy is 7-2 at this stage of his nascent career, O’Connaire is 35-5, Cumiskey, the most experienced boxer, is 50-15, and Og O’Grady is 32-10.
Andrew O’Neill, a 27-year-old 156-pounder with a 15-15 record, and Paddy Gallagher a 6-foot-4 heavyweight complete the team.
Gallagher has won only four of his nine amateur bouts, but he has a well-deserved reputation as an athlete in the North of Ireland where he runs up mountains and is hailed as “The King of Orbeg.”
Accompanying the St. Saviour’s boxers to New York will be coaches Thomas Ahearn and James Halpin.
Proceeds from the 7:30 p.m. show will go toward supporting boxing in Long Island.
“We’re raising money for two clubs. We’re trying to keep boxing alive on Long Island,” said Lovell, who came up with the idea for the show.
Denis Dillon, the Nassau County District Attorney and a backer of the sport on Long Island, is also involved with the show.
For ticket information, call (631) 689-7794.

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