Gritty Harty falls just short of National Under 19 Championship final
Edward Harty with his coaches Pat Ryan and Johnny Harty after winning the National Champion Youth.2. 66kgs in April this year
PORTLAOISE Boxing Club’s Neddy Harty turned in a dogged performance, but was denied further passage through to the National Under 19 Championship 65kg decider after he was beaten 5-0 by John Donoghue in Saturday’s semi-finals in the National Stadium.
Harty, who only the week before, had seen off the challenge his Portlaoise clubmate, Louis Griffin in the quarter finals, gave it his all in his enthralling battle with Donoghue, which Portlaoise head coach, Pat Ryan insisted was one of the highlight contests of the weekend.
“It was absolutely top of the bill,” Ryan told the . “Two European champions going at it. It was just amazing the way it ebbed and flowed.
“One minute Neddy was on top, the next minute young Donoghue was on top. Just the eye-catching shots, with the range of Donoghue. He's a huge man and an exceptional guy, and so is Neddy.
“Both of them, really and truly, are immersed in the sport of boxing and both of them attend to those good habits.
“This is only just a journey to become an elite boxer. Neddy has a great future ahead of him and so does young Donoghue and, definitely, both will be in two different weight categories when they get to adult,” he predicted.
Certainly boxing on the National Under 19 stage will stand to Harty, who is eligible to compete in this division for another two years.
“It was a wild call to put him in there in the first place because we now we have those weight categories, 60kg, 65kg, 70kg, 75kg,” remarked Ryan.
“These are all going to be our Olympic weights, although these boys are only juveniles, but, at the moment, that's the way it is.
“Neddy and Louis met last week. If you had the original weight categories, one would have been in 63kg and the other in 66kg, so that was kind of imposed on us.
“But we have to give it a try. It’s a great experience and both of them are top class,” he said.
Harty captured the National Junior Two 66kg competition title back in March, capping that campaign with a superb 5-0 triumph over Conan Kearney of St. Bridget’s BC in the National Stadium.
That followed up on his gold medal win at last year’s European Junior Championships in Sarajevo when he completed a superb five-bout campaign with an emphatic 4-1 victory over Armenia’s Aleks Petrosayan in the 63kg decider.
That gold medal was one of two that Ireland recorded at the 2024 competition, with Donoghue accounting for the other in the 66kg division.
Next up for Harty and some 35 Portlaoise boxers will be the Monkstown International Box Cup taking place in the National Stadium later this month.
Some 11 countries will be represented in this year’s event, which will be one of a number of multi-nation tournaments in which Portlaoise Boxing Club plans to take part over the coming months.
