Teers sets himself up for run at an ABA title

Teers rose to the task of headlining an electric evening of boxing against Merseyside and Cheshire opposition at Beau Sejour, winning a frenetic super-flyweight finale against Lucas Dube on split decision to level the match score at five-all.

The bout ran close as the outcome suggested and it was hard to land a good hit against Dube, but Teers fought hard to the end and got the nod from the judges.

‘Lucas is a really strong opponent, so I knew I had to be on my A game,’ he said.

‘I thought it was a 50/50 fight. I was happy with my performance.

‘I thought I got better towards the end, and I think that’s what won me the fight really.’

In avenging a previous defeat to Dube, the Guernsey star has shown strong form against one of his major rivals for April’s National Amateur Championships, AKA the ABAs.

When it comes to setting targets for the Nationals, he is holding nothing back.

‘I know I’m going to be meeting him again in the ABAs, so it’s good to kind of learn from each other and hopefully I can go into the ABAs and win it.’

Also towards the business end of the bill, young Finn Walsh and Emile Prevel celebrated victories for the red corner.

Walsh came through a close contest against Declan Hunt, who had a height advantage, to take the split decision.

But the real crowd-thriller – and the eventual fight of the night – had come with Prevel’s commanding performance in a fast and furious bout against Paul Bramhall, which resulted in an unanimous decision favouring the Guernsey boxer. Prevel is yet to be defeated.

In his second bout overall and first win, Josh Lazarou had boxed intelligently to claim a unanimous victory of his own against Lewis Mercer.

Young Kody Domaille claimed a split-decision win in a competitive minimum-weight bout with Evan Cook.

However, when facing a side with such manpower as Merseyside and Cheshire, some losses were practically inevitable.

In a close middleweight battle, Martins Kublickis ended up on the wrong end of a split decision against Nick Watson.

Impressive newcomer Tyler Quintal’s hot streak came to an end in a battle of the Tylers.

He seemed to be holding his own against Tyler Smith but got hit with a hard hook early in round two, fell to the canvas and avoided being counted out, only for the fight to be stopped by the referee shortly after continuation.

Jimmy Lesbirel lost via referee stoppage deep into his comeback bout, after nearly five years of not competing, to Ryan Parker.

Youngsters Arnie Watson and Liam Duff both put up valiant efforts but were outpointed by strong opposition.

Two of the 15 contests had to be scrubbed from the programme, including the star of the last Beau Sejour show, Russ Gogercaks, having his bout called off for back injury.

Three others went ahead only as skills bouts, showing off potential stars of the future.

And so, just like Guernsey’s trip over to Liverpool earlier that same month, it resulted in an overall draw.

But Guernsey Amalgamated Boxing Club coach Liam Doherty was rather pleased with that outcome against what he called an ‘exceptionally strong squad’.

‘We fought them about 10 years ago and we lost every single bout,’ he said.

‘Now we’re fighting them on essentially even terms there with some really closely contested bouts – ones that could have gone either way.

‘And yeah, I just want to keep up this up. It’s brilliant that we go over and they come over.’

After a packed February of boxing, the GABC are currently looking at other potential away matches for this promising squad.

n More reaction to follow.