In the week that his coach Sean Doran passed away, Sean Duffy has done him proud by reaching the lightweight final at the Commonwealth Youth Games.

Doran, who lost his battle with cancer at the age of 58, enjoyed the highlight of his career in 1994 when Marty Reneghan - also a lightweight - picked up silver at the main Commonwealth Games in Victoria.

Now 14 years later and Keady teenager Duffy has already bagged silver but today shoots for gold in Pune, India when he tangles with England’s Daniel Phillips.

Yesterday, Duffy had too much class and variety for India’s Neeraj Goyal, winning their semi-final 14-7.

Featherweight Paul Hyland of Immaculata had to settle for bronze as he went down 16-3 to England’s Iain Weaver in their last four clash.

Four Ulstermen are also seeking glory down Mexico way as Tyrone McKenna, Tyrone McCullagh, Ruari Dalton and Tommy McCarthy prepared to do battle in the World Youth championships.

McKenna and McCarthy, from Belfast club Oliver Plunkett, are eager to kick off their campaign after the hardest training regime of their young careers.

In order to commit to the IABA’s High Performance unit over the past six weeks, McKenna quit his job and McCarthy his A-levels. Both are looking in amazing condition and president Dominic O’Rourke agreed that Ireland has never sent a better prepared junior squad to any competition.

Light-heavyweight McCarthy said: “The training has just been amazing. We have never worked like this before.

“The first day we arrived we had our body fat checked, we’ve been working on every aspect of our performance.

“We also had great sparring with England and a Romanian team and there’s going to be more in Mexico because we’re hooking up with the Russians and the French.

“I also got to spar Darren Sutherland which was fantastic and Tyrone (McKenna) sparred Eric Donovan.”

McKenna added: “All the lads are bouncing out of their skin and we don’t care who we draw because we’ll be ready for them.

“It used to be that Irish boxers hoped for a good draw but now we’re confident about beating anyone in the world. All eight in the team are gunning for a medal.”