Blanchardstown boxer battles for the big time

PROFESSIONAL boxer and Blanchardstown native Darragh Foley has dreams of becoming a World Champion after extending his record numbr of wins to 9-2 in Sydney last month.

The 27-year-old, who is a former pupil of Coolmine Community School, defeated Joebert De los Reyes at the Punchbowl in Bankstown on July 2 and successfully claimed the vacant WBA Oceania Super Lightweight Title in the process.

The win should catapult Foley into the top 15 in his division and for the Dubliner it’s exactly where he wants to be.

“World Champion! That’s the ultimate goal,” Foley told Northside People. “Hopefully when these rankings come out next month I’ll be in the top 15, which on paper, makes me eligible to fight for a world title.

“If I get into the top 15 it’s just all about building, building and building; to get me into that position where I can fight for a world title. That’s the dream.”

But the dream wasn’t always a world title shot for Foley who nearly gave up boxing at 22 after sustaining a serious thumb injury in his last amateur bout. Foley was fighting on a Dublin selection card with famed Dublin club St Saviours when the fighter, who currently lives in Sydney, broke his thumb in the very first round of his final amateur fight.

Foley would not fight again for another two years until he went to a local boxing club in Sydney after touring South East Asia.

“I spent three months travelling around South East Asia and then when I got to Australia I was drawn to a boxing club,” he explained. “It was my first day in the boxing club and the coach said to me ‘have you got gear for sparring?’

“I said ‘no, but I’ll bring some tomorrow.’ The next day he put me in with a guy called Chris John who at that time was an undefeated world champion.

“He was one week out from a fight so he was razor sharp and we sparred three rounds; back then three rounds to me felt like  one hundred rounds.

“He bet me around the ring for the most part of it, up and down, and I was black and blue after it – but I saw enough from that first spar against a guy that at that time was pound-for-pound in the top 10 in the world – that I knew I could hang with the best.”

Foley added that it wasn’t until he got to Australia that he truly knew that he had what it took to become an elite level boxer. He claims that he’s a boxing fanatic and that he used to watch all the old fights with his dad on Sky Sports but that he was ill-disciplined in his youth, and that he never had the necessary work ethic to fulfil his potential.

These days he’s a full-time professional fighter out of Sydney and while he still has a way to go before he satisfies his goals, some of his dreams have already been accomplished.

“It’s hard because you’re a professional athlete but you’re still working as well and the prize money isn’t that great. It’s not enough to get by, but thankfully I’m after working my way up to a point where now I’m fully professional.

“All I do is train in the morning, rest all day, then train in the evening. Right now I’m where I always wanted to be and where I thought I could be when I first booked those flights to Australia.”