Boxers bring home Tasman Cup

Luke Martin, Ella Boot, Tyler Blizzard and Sam Cameron-Hands.

By Ron Lane

Last weekend a team of four fighters from the Impact Boxing Academy Cooroy, plus coach Mark Evans, and ten from the Shamrock Club Maroochydore, travelled to the Pakuranga United Rugby Club in Auckland, New Zealand to take part in an Inter Club boxing tournament.
Impact was represented by Luke Martin, Tyler Blizzard, Sam Cameron-Hands and Ella Boot.
Held on Saturday night, Blizzard, Cameron-Hands and Boot scored wins with Martin being unlucky too lose on a split decision.
“The standard of boxing was very good indeed,” Evans said. “Amongst the Kiwi club fighters there were National Champions as well as boxers who had contested the World Junior Championships in Europe in 2015.”
For the Impact team there were two major stand outs.
First was the naming of Tyler Blizzard as the winner of the Most Technical Boxer of the Tournament, and second Ella Boot’s win now gives her nine fights for nine wins.
“Ella’s win was really good as we believe she lost the first round, but taking advice from our corner team, she recovered well to take the decision. Her ability to stay cool and not panic is her strong point. With Ella coming back the way she did it was probably the best performance of her career. We were really stoked,” Evans said.
At the end of the tournament, the result was a win for the Aussie visitors by seven wins to six.
This resulted in the Aussies being presented with the winner’s trophy – the Tasman Cup.
Arriving home there was no rest. This weekend twelve members of the Impact Club will travel to Acacia Ridge in Brisbane to fight in the State Selection Trials with the winners then going on to fight for Queensland at the Australian Titles which will be held in Adelaide in April.
We wish them well.