Report by Mike Keane ABS Performance Co-ordinator
3 August 2010
The flights from Edinburgh to Dublin were on time we arrived at the national stadium around 10.20am. The first training session was at 11.00am so the boys never got much of a chance to recover from the travel but took part anyway.
The training session was just up the road so the boys had a 5-10min jog at the running track Afterwards they were asked to complete 800m, four times in under three minutes. All our boys ran very well and were by no means lagging behind.
The team are staying at the staying in the Griffith College which does the job just fine. The boys were allocated their rooms then at 12.30pm Lunch which was just next to the gym consisted of soup, sandwiches and salad buffet. The next training session was in the gym open sparring.
Iain Butcher v Ryan Burnett/Paddy Barnes
Josh Taylor v Eric Donovan
Joe Ham v J.J.Nevin
Aston Brown v Willie McLoughlin
Callum Johnstone v Tom Mcarthy/Steve Ward
Steven Simmons v Steve Ward/Tom Mcarthy
Ross Henderson v Con Sheehan. All 4 rounds each.
The sparring was pretty hard going but all our boys coped very well and I would say they there has been an improvement in general fitness, attitude and general approach towards their boxing. Ireland only train twice a day – a morning session around 10.00am and afternoon session around 3.00pm.
04 August 2010
10am – Strength and Conditioning was held and the session split into two groups (under 64kgs first) 11am second group (over 64kgs).
3.00pm – 10 rounds of partner work, focusing on a variety of different attacks and defence moves and although it was supposed to be 60% power it never looked that way to me! The boys ended up having a very worthwhile spar again and a generally an impressive performance from the squad. We finished off with an abs session, skipping and then a warm down.
05 August 2010
11.00am:- Jog up to the running track, 2 x 400 metre circuits with 4 sprints mixed in x 4 again looking to do the 2 circuits in under 3 mins which we achieved.
3.00pm:- Gym session 2 groups.
over 64kgs first 6 x 3 mins of partner work in ring i.e. lead hand only both boys,changing the theme each round. This was followed by 4 rounds on the bags with specific punches/moves.2 rounds skipping and a stretch.
All the boys have commented on the quality of the sparring and all are enjoying the camp. It is a very positive squad we have at the moment and they are looking forward to the challenge ahead.
06 August 2010
Training today at 10.00am consisting of 2 rounds shadow boxing, 4 rounds open sparring, 4 rounds bag work and 2 rounds skipping.
Sparring partners:- Josh v Eric Donovan/Steve Donnelly
Joe v Paddy Barnes/Michael Conlon
Iain v Ryan Burnett
Aston v Willie Mcloughin/Paddy Gallagher.
As it says this was open sparring and as close to a bout as you will get our boys seem to be relishing this type of challenge and looked good.
Billy Walsh the High Performance Coach and his team of staff made us all very welcome here and thanked us for our input, we also thanked them for having us at their camp and Billy said we could return at any time when suitable.
To summarise:-This to me has been a very worthwhile camp and we can visually see the difference in the boxers involved and their confidence is also growing continuously.
