Boxing: Irwin eager to deliver promise of eight medals

England's national boxing coach Ian Irwin knows just how difficult it is to win medals at the Commonwealth Games, but remains confident that when the boxing tournament starts next week his team of 12 will win eight.

Irwin first went to the Commonwealth Games back in 1978 in Edmonton, Canada, as the assistant coach, and since he took over in 1990 at the Games in Auckland his boxers have won a total of 13 medals including eight golds.

"It is nice that this time we will not have to be on the road for weeks and hopefully that will be an advantage for us," said Irwin, who is from Windermere in Cumbria.

Last year the English Amateur Boxing Association was promised £13.8m over a seven-year period, and part of their application for the funding from the National Lottery Sport England Performance Fund included an assertion that they would win eight medals at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester. However, it also included a claim that they would win one medal at the World Championships in Belfast last year – but they managed to win two.

Yesterday Irwin and his squad, which was reduced to nine because of funerals and an outbreak of flu, completed their training at Crystal Palace before returning to their families for a few days. They are all expected in Manchester on Sunday for the last few days before the first bell sounds at the Wythenshawe Forum next Friday.

The team of 12 includes only three current domestic champions and there are several weights where a box-off for the final place seemed inevitable, but Irwin and his two selectors decided against going down that route.

Perhaps the best contender for a gold medal is David Haye, who last year won England's first ever silver medal in a World Championship, when he lost in the final to a Cuban at heavyweight.

Haye is arguably the only boxer without a domestic opponent who would test him.

There is only one reigning Commonwealth champion in the team and that is Courtney Fry. A light heavyweight, Fry boxed for the Repton Club in London in 1998 but has since moved to Liverpool and has joined the Salisbury club there. Fry said: "Some people think the Commonwealth Games are easy but they are not and a lot of the squad are going to have to box to the best of their ability to get close to the medals.''