BYRNE NOW FINALIST -SILVER ASSURED

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33447, 31 January 1974, Page 8

BYRNE NOW FINALIST -SILVER ASSURED

(By

MILTON HAYES)

The Wellington light heavyweight Rill Byrne won the crowd's admiration at Canterbury Court last night when he assured New Zealand of at least a silver medal in the Games boxing.

I The final tomorrow night—' against the West Indies-born English representative, BillKnight, who beat Gordon Ferris (Northern Ireland)— I was in doubt early today .'because of Byrne’s cut eye. It is not known whether the cut will heal in time, but no stitches were inserted. Earlier, New Zealand had to settle for three bronzes when Les Rackley, Lance Revill and Robert Colley were beaten in the semifinals yesterday. Byrne gained a split points decision over the Nigerian, Isaac Ikhuoria, in a bout which sometimes looked like a game of cat-and-mouse. The Nigerian, a bronze medallist at the 1972 Olympics, had a high reputation and the obvious tactics for Byrne were to keep on the move, boxing from be-j hind his left lead. Byrne, at| 22 the oldest boxer in the, 'New Zealand team, did this ’ 'admirably. 1

Ikuhoria was caught time after time by Byrne’s jabbing left in the first round. The Nigerian found his opponent a difficult target, but seemed content to bide his time. There was an anxious moment in the third round I when the referee asked a 'doctor to inspect a nick just {above the New Zealander’s [eye. But Byrne, blood (Streaming down his face, held lout. I The New Zealand team is still the most successful to represent this country. A GAME REVILL Rackley was comfortably outpointed by the Zambian middle-weight, Julius Luipa, and light-weight Colley was clearly beaten by Ayub Kalule (Uganda). However, Revill put up a great battle before going down on a split decision to the tough Scot, Alex Harrison. Rackley tried to tie up the Zambian at every opportunity, but Luipa, continually moving forward, landed hard rights to the head and forced the New Zealander to block with his body. Revill found Harrison indestructible. He hit himj several times with his I dynamic right, relying on! this, instead of making more use of his left, but every time

the Scot shrugged off the punch. Harrison, with his walk-up tactics, must have taken the first two rounds, but the Aucklander made a special effort in the third, after catching Harrison with a succession of rights to the head. The bout was a crowdpleaser from start to finish and there could be little argument that the Scot deserved the decision.

In the other light middleweight semi-final, the tall Zambian Lotti Mwale scored a surprise win over Robert Davies (England).

Colley lacked the experience to cope with Kalule and was comfortably beaten on

points. He took an eight count in the third round after being felled by a right rip. There is a prospect of a great final in the fly-weight division tomorrow night, with the clever Indian boxerfighter Chandra Narayanan against David Larmour (Northern Ireland). Larmour had a points win over Saliu Ishola (Nigeria).

AFRICAN DOMINANCE The St Vincent middleweight, Frankie Lucas —left out of the England team —in one of the best bouts last evening, won on a split points decision over Carl Speare (England). There was a surprise in the final bout of the evening when the Nigerian heavyweight, Fatai Ayinla, stopped the defending Games champion, the huge Ugandan, Benson Masanda, in the second round. The strength of African boxing is emphasised by the fact that of the twenty-two finalists it has 13. The United Kingdom has six and the only others are Byrne and the Indian fly-weight, Chandra Narayanan and Lucas.