Owen looks forward to his next boxing day

Damian McCarney

Boxer Owen Duffy seems to have retained the spring in his step, despite having lost the spring in his punch.
With the stove door ajar, and the fire raging, we’re embracing the warmth in O’Mahony’s Bar on Shercock’s Main Street on Friday evening. Had he not been hit by injury Owen would dearly love to be elsewhere - 70 miles southeast to be precise, in Dublin’s National Stadium. It’s finals night for the All-Ireland intermediate amateur boxers, a tournament he’d eyed up at the start of 2014.
His All-Ireland novice title last January, followed by the Ringside World Championship in Kansas in August are what makes Owen such a thrilling prospect. To lift the belt Stateside he had to win four fights in five days. Sounds tough? Owen managed it despite an agonising injury to his right hand; his jab.
“I fractured it and dislocated it in the first fight,” he explains over a glass of Lucozade.
Must have been agony?
“Aw yeah. I knew straight after the fight. I had all these wraps on, and I said, ‘There’s something wrong with that hand’. I took it off and this knuckle is down here,” he says indicating that his finger had been forced back, up over his knuckle and was wedged in the top of his hand.
Coach Frick McMahon took the DIY approach to orthopedic surgery - as needs must.
“He said, ‘Let me have a look at that.’ He didn’t even tell me, he just pulled it and put it straight back in place.”
For Owen to get his busted hands on the Ringside belt he had to negotiate three more contests.
“It was out like that for every fight,” he says, indicating it was blown up with swelling. “When you are fighting and there’s hard hits going you can’t really feel it at all, but Jesus you feel it after.”
Having outfought his opponents, he then had to outwit the medics.
“I had physios check me after every fight. They grab your hands and twist them. I had wraps on so they can’t tell if this hand’s broke or not, so they just twist them and squeeze them. I was just biting my tongue saying, ‘Aw I’m a hundred per cent’.”
With no time for his hand to recover, a combination of extra wrapping and an astute tactical plan somehow saw him through. As a southpaw he switched to orthodox stance, and relied on his lightning hand speed and counter attacking style.
“It was a bit awkward but I was delighted to get through and win it.”
It’d make you wonder what you could do if you had the use of two fists, the Celt volunteers.
“Exactly,” he says; that thought’s crossed his mind too.
“I’ve been watching a few of the intermediates [in the National Stadium on TV], and now I can’t wait to get a rattle at it next year.”

Ligaments
He’d have been competing this year only he returned to training too soon, considering his damaged hand.
“I had it 80% ready, and when I was sparring I unfortunately hit a fella straight on the elbow, and put it straight back out.”
Thankfully Frick stepped aside this time to let a bone specialist look after it. Owen is receiving physio, but it’s still not quite right.
“I have to rest up for three months because the ligaments are badly damaged.
He pushes the fingers of his clenched fist. “You see I can’t get the spring in it,” he’s pushing his right forefinger. “If I punch there, there’s no spring - it’s not strong enough, and that’s what will make it pop out.”
In three months it should be fine. Amateur boxing’s big national tournaments are all loaded into the tail end of the year, so Owen, who doesn’t turn 21 until January, will have plenty of time to get battle-ready.
“The tournament I’m targeting is the All-Ireland [senior elite] Under 22s which are usually around September-October; intermediate Ulsters in October, and All Irelands November/December. I’m really aiming to be ready for September.”
Owen, who works in Carton’s, and aims to resume his studies in September, is not letting his hand injury get in the way of his fitness regime, under the guidance of his Carrickmacross coaches Frick and pro-boxer Christina McMahon.
“There’s no bag work, so it’s all technique training - shadow boxing, skipping and a lot of fitness training in the gym.”

Olympics
This shift in training emphasis, Owen expects, will work in his favour.
“I feel it will make me even more hungry to come back next year, and I’ll be even more ready for it.”
Despite his youth, he’s looked to the example Jason Quigley and John Joe Nevin, in charting out his career aspirations.
“I’m really aiming to get to an Olympics - 2016. If not 2016, definitely 2020, and after that go professional.
“If you go professional now, not many promoters will know you, so you are better off going to the Olympics and getting a name for yourself, and then you’ll have plenty of promoters coming for you and plenty of fights.”

Dinner
It’s impossible to talk to a boxer without mentioning weight. He’s working out at 72-73kg, and fighting at 69kg - welterweight.
“That’s my ideal weight,” he says confidently, and then the one silver lining of his lay-off becomes apparent.
“My diet at the minute is not mad strict. I’ll have my first Christmas dinner in three years.”
In previous years his dinners sound like something served up in a Dickens novel.
“It’d be a bit of turkey, and like, one spud - no gravy or stuffing.”
That’s not Christmas dinner!
“Ah quit,” he says wearing a pained expression. “No dessert nor nothing.”

Welcome home
Owen’s sacrifices are outweighed by the pay-offs - the belts, titles and most of all the mammoth welcome home reception.
“I didn’t expect that at all,” he says, truly humbled. Local gardaí stopped his father’s car and insisted Owen walk into town with his belt.
“It was great, and when we got to the top of Fairhill and looked down and saw a couple of hundred people and it was just amazing.”
“In boxing you do a lot of things on your own - you run the roads early in the morning or late at night, and you train twice a day and you have to give up on a social life. You really wonder, does anyone notice how much of an effort you put in? To get that reception for your efforts - it’s just incredible.”
Last Sunday he had a mini-reprise of the reception as he joined another local hero, Brendan McCahey in switching on the Christmas lights.
“It’s amazing. You see Brendan on telly and he’s after wining the Voice of Ireland, and next thing you are being regarded as the same as him - it’s brilliant.
“It’s great the town appreciates what you are doing and it’s good to give back to the town as well.”