Ray Moylette captures Irish senior boxing title

St Anne’s Ray Moylette, left, exchanges punches with All Saints’ Stephen Donnelly during their men’s elite 64kg bout at the National Stadium, Dublin last weekend.

Moylette captures Irish senior crown


Daniel Carey
Dublin

THERE were emotional scenes in the National Stadium on Saturday night as Ray Moylette of St Anne’s Boxing Club, Westport captured his first senior title. In the end, he did so in style, seeing off Antrim’s Stephen Donnelly 10-3. Now he looks set to represent Ireland at the European Championships in Russia next June, before that he will box an Italian opponent in an international next Friday.
“I couldn’t even believe I was in a senior final,” the Islandeady man told The Mayo News just minutes after he collected the belt as the 64kg Elite winner. “It just happened out of the blue. I’ve been boxing badly all year. I’ve just changed a few things around in my life, and I’m back in to my old form again. Hopefully I can hold onto it.”
It’s 35 years since Peter Mullen (now club president) won St Anne’s last national crown, and there was a huge Westport following on Dublin’s South Circular Road. For Moylette, who captured the world youth title in 2008, it was a memorable night, made all the more special by the presence of a busload of Mayo supporters.
“Yeah, there’s a very big crowd up,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the same without them here.
It just makes it all worthwhile when people follow you like that.”
After a cagey opening, Moylette put on a defensive master-class in round one, and All Saints man Donnelly couldn’t land anything on him.
After opening the scoring with a decent left hook, he landed two further counter-punches and was 3-0 up at the bell.
Moylette joked that he was ‘getting the blame’ for some defensive tactics that were ‘creeping up on a lot of boxers’, but added: “If it’s working, why not try it? I’ve tried to perfect my guard because maybe I got hit too much when I was younger.” Opponents may think they’re in control of the bout, he explained, ‘but they’re only hitting your arms’.
Moylette’s great guard was also on view in round two. Donnelly expended a lot of energy for no reward, and there was no score for the first two and a half minutes.
He made it 4-0 with a close-range punch that, as one neutral observer put it, ‘was so fast Donnelly didn’t even see it’. There were no fewer than three points awarded in the final ten seconds, as the Ulsterman made it 4-2 before Moylette made it 5-2 just before the bell.
Such had been the quality of his performance in the semi-final that some experts feared Moylette might have left his best form behind him.
The world youth champion admitted that there was ‘a lot of rivalry’ in his meeting with Philip Sutcliffe, given that the Dubliner had knocked out Moylette’s brother Richie a few years ago.
In any event, his round three display last Saturday laid to rest any worries that he had peaked too early.
Donnelly cut the gap to two points after landing a body shot in round three, but Moylette weathered the early storm – and saved the best ’till last. He made it 6-3, which got a huge cheer, and while his opponent gave him a few scares, the Mayoman turned on the style in the closing 60 seconds.
With the Westport crowd going wild, he made it 7-3, then 8-3. The westerners were on their feet, and their man delivered with some fast hands and clever boxing.
There was the briefest moment of show-boating as the score went to 9-3, but as Donnelly went for the killer punch, he left himself open. By the end, Moylette had made it 10-3 and was the subject of a standing ovation from those who had made the journey.
“I was able to pick him off in the last round,” he reflected. Maybe I was holding myself for the last round, in case anything did happen. I was just picking my shots in the first and second rounds. In the last round, I just tried to open up a bit. And I was able to do that. In saying that, I would not be able to do that for three rounds.
“You can’t. Especially not in a senior final. Mentally and physically, I was drained. It’s just such a big occasion, and I’m just glad … that’s the first title in the club in a long time, and it’s nice to be the first one to bring it back again.”
The night ended on a high for St Anne’s, and it looked for a while as if it was going to begin that way too. However, Sharon McGing went down 11-7 to Bray’s Amanda Loughlin in the 54kg Novice final, despite a stirring performance in the second round.
Trailing 4-1 after the opening two-minute round, the Kinuary, Killawalla native came back with a bang, and retrieved a 6-3 deficit to tie the score at 6-6 going into the last. In fact, she hit the front for the first time early in round three, but her Wicklow opponent finished stronger.
Tara Keane of St Anne’s, who won the 64kg title without a contest, was also presented with her belt and certificate on Saturday night.