O’Reilly and Casey one step away from National U/15 Championship titles
Rosaletta Casey with her coaches John Dollard and Gerry Casey
PORTLAOISE Boxing Club will be hoping to complete this season’s National Under 15 Championships with three title winners.
While James Jnr Donoghue was awarded a walkover in the 33kg division, the club will see both Thomas O’Reilly and Rosaletta Casey fight for their respective titles in the National Stadium tonight.
O’Reilly secured his place in the 75kg decider following his first-round stoppage of Edenmore’s James Ward in the semi-finals earlier this month, while Casey secured further passage to the 42kg title bout after she earned a unanimous 5-0 decision against Hannah Nolan of Curadh Boxing Club in her penultimate round contest.
Portlaoise Boxing Club head coach, Pat Ryan has been impressed by both boxers and believes they have the potential to each make it three national titles in as many seasons.
Indeed, O’Reilly already has Boy One and Two honours to his name and will be hoping to add to that when he takes on Desmond West for the National Under 15 prize after the Togher man got the better of Ruairi Callinan of St. Michael’s Athy in the last four.
“Thomas is a very powerful boxer,” remarked Ryan. “He can be very explosive, very fast and his timing is absolutely superb.
“That lad Desmond is a good boxer and a big lad too, so I think Thomas will approach this fight very cautiously and at long range.
“Thomas is a Boy Three who’s endowed with very powerful physical attributes. He has a great defence mechanism and he’s very sharp” he told the .
Casey will, meanwhile, be going up against Isabelle Nolan, in what is sure to be a great battle for the Under 15 42kg prize on Friday.
While the Ballinacarrow competitor does have a decision over her from the Monkstown Box Cup, Ryan insists his young protégé can build on the lessons learned from that reversal.
“This upcoming final is a real 50-50 fight,” said Ryan. “I think Rosaletta will have learnt from her last encounter with her and she’ll definitely do things differently now.
“The girl she’s fighting is very much a come-forward type of boxer, so Rosaletta has to get her tactics right.
“Sometimes box cups can be very different contests and can be judged differently as well, so I feel Rosaletta has a great chance.
“She boxed very well in her semi-final and she’s in great shape. She’s really after putting in a serious investment of time into what she’s doing,” he said.
A strong finish to the Under 15 Championships will provide Portlaoise with the perfect springboard into next month’s National Senior Cadet Championships, in which the club will field Lorcan Holohan (63.5kg), Kevin Pukuta (75kg), Ryan Byrne (70kg), Fabian Berko (66kg) and Jack Cahill (54kg).
Holohan will be heading into that competition on the back of his superb gold medal win at the recent World of Havoc Tournament in Orlando, Florida where he carded superb victories over Xavier Cruz-Villa of California and Florida’s Christopher Thigpen.
And he will be pushing strongly for a second gold medal win on the National Senior Cadet stage this year, having gone all the way in the competition back in May following a superb campaign in which he recorded five unanimous decision wins over Kai Dynes of Immaculata, Oakleaf’s Lucas McIvor, Darren Joyce of Sacred Heart, Patrick Myers of Spartacus BC and Phoenix Kenny of Baldoyle.
Jack Cahill, meanwhile, will be looking to go one step better on his last showing in these championships when he earned silver after having surmounted the challenge of Jake Page from Clonard in the quarter-finals and Holy Family’s Paddy Nevin in the semis, before losing out to Lee Largey Snodden of Immaculata BC in the decider.
