Latest / Between The Rounds Official / Jon Mackey: Leading the Performance Behind Irish Boxing | Between the Rounds

Transcript

Jon Mackey: Leading the Performance Behind Irish Boxing | Between the Rounds · Between The Rounds Official

• Sarah: Welcome to Between the Rounds. I am your host, Sarah Cunningham, and today I am filming this episode ⁓ out of the performance unit here with Boxing Ireland. I have been very fortunate to be able to train with the team here for the past 10 weeks. ⁓ And my guest is someone who joined Boxing Ireland. just over twelve months ago and what might be considered the most complex role within Irish sport, the performance director of Boxing Ireland, the program that built many of our Olympians, to name a few, Kellie Harrington, Katie Taylor, Paddy Barnes, and Michael Conlon And we all know boxing is ⁓ greatest, decorated Olympic sport for our Now, what he found was a system under pressure, but what he's been able to do within 12 months. So this conversation is about what John inherited the changes that he made within the programming and what we can expect from Boxing Ireland in the future. So welcome, John, to Between the Rounds. Thank you, Sarah. Good to be here. Amazing. Awesome. So, John, you walked into a boxing club when you were nine years old and spent almost 30 years in international kickboxing ⁓ then moved on to the canoeing programming, right? ⁓ but we hear that the performance director role was probably one of the most complex roles that you could have taken on in Irish sport. What was it actually like when you when you joined? Is evolve a lot of what that offering brings. So everything from the selection process to the coaching structure I wanted to have this conversation because I've experienced firsthand what John has ⁓ been able to evolve the And I've been fortunate enough to be in part of that wider selection pathway for for athletes across our country. And I'm truly grateful for that because it's shaped the fighter that I've become today. Now, John's background isn't what you expect. He did start Boxing when he was nine years old and actually spent almost 30 years in international kickboxing. From there, he built the Olympic canoeing programming and secured four boats for the Paris Olympics. The one I'll really love to hear about is he's never not learning. when I walked into the boxing gym here into the high performance unit for the first time, I described it as a very fast paced and dynamic environment. these guys are moving at a pace. It's a huge there's a lot staff. We have a multidisciplinary team. there's three and a half / four days of training here a week and lots of stuff was going on. So from my perspective, it kinda felt like, my god, this is a bit chaotic, you know. I'm trying to get my handle on it and make sense of it for me. He's continuously thinking about the ways in which he can advance performance for our athletes and also understanding how they learn. We that boxing here in is a volunteer-based programme. And so, with that, a lot of our fighters start out in small volunteer-based clubs before they make it here. And so he recognises that and meets them where they're at. it took me a while ⁓ and a lot sleepless nights to try and get the dots to link up and to make sense of it because it's a different different environment. It's a bigger programme, there's a lot more at stake and there's a lot of expect ⁓ expectation obviously it's Irish boxing and it's the most successful Olympic sport in Ireland, you know. And so through all of that experience, he's now bringing everything he's learned into the ring and into Boxing Ireland. Yeah, it was complex. It it continues to be complex because it's a complex environment. The performance environment is inherently complex when you think about it because the heart of that we're about shaping human behaviour, but through the lens of performance. ⁓ it wasn't long after then that kind of had mentioned that he wanted to step away from the business. You're obviously still s finding your footing in that space. How did you kind of navigate that decision and ⁓ what were the immediate kind of that you had to focus on? Yeah, I mean in fairness to Zaur he had flagged this really early on So I wasn't blindsided by this in fairness to Zaur. but we very quickly sat down and worked out a plan and I brought Damien Kennedy in on it and we worked out a structured transition for Zaur And we worked we all worked together to deliver a very amicable package for Zaur. ⁓ and Zaur was retiring from Irish boxing, not from boxing. He still felt he had a lot to give, but he had given twenty three years to the sport ⁓ through some of the most turbulent times in fairness to him. And it allowed me to kind of have a think about what does it look like when Zaur is gone. ⁓ and to be honest, we're very lucky to have somebody like Damien Kennedy who could just step in seamlessly, who just knows the system, knows the environment, knows the boxers, knows the build, knows you know, he's he's just a he was the perfect person to step up at that time. So there was a seamless transition. Damien and Zaur have worked together for a long time and they have a great relationship. And while Damien has brought his own coaching style based on his own philosophies, et cetera, he spent a lot of time with Zaur and he's learnt a lot from Zaur at the same time. So that transition was quite smooth. Maybe on the outside looking in, it might looked like a shock. But we were well aware of what was happening and we had a good plan in place. That's great, that's great. And I, you know, I I've been very vocal honest about my perspective on Damien. I've been blown away by his coaching style. ⁓ just the the depth and breadth of knowledge he brings and his ability to just adapt to every single individual. Not just the fighter that they are, but the individual that they are and and how he can best communicate and coach. Absolutely hundred percent. I like I've worked with a lot of coaches over my career and I was one myself, ⁓ and I think Damian Kennedy stands out as probably the most impressive human being that I've encountered in the coaching space. He carries just through his own life experience I guess, he just carries all those attributes that you can't actually teach somebody. They're all his own personal values. ⁓ the intensity at which he works and how he sees everybody as an individual within a very big programme here with a lot of people in it. ⁓ so it's a credit to him. ⁓ and I think at the moment we're in a very good place with him at the helm. I agree on that. in terms of you've obviously made some ⁓ bigger across the coaching team or what you know, made some shifts there. Can you speak a little bit about people you brought in and ⁓ obviously the head coach role is still open or kind of what does that pathway look like Yeah, so so Damien is in the national head coach position on an interim basis. ⁓ the right thing to do for Boxing Ireland is of course is to go to an an open recruitment process. Good governance suggests we should do that. This is public money, ⁓ taxpayers' money. so we will go to the market sometime around July. We're still to fixate on a on a date, ⁓ but we'll do that sometime around July. That will be a long process, it'll be a couple of months. And we'll see what comes out the other side of that. But it'll be an open process. But in the meantime, yeah, we've we've the coaching team slightly. We've got some new faces in into the program. So JP Delaney has joined the national program. Now JP won't be a stranger to Irish box and having been an elite champion himself. and I got to experience his coaching this week again, fantastic. Yeah, he's an he's another class act, like we're very v we're very lucky with the standard really of coaching within the Irish system. He's come through the the system. It's a great example of what can happen. he came through as a as a boxer, a competitor, an elite champion into learning how to coach, ⁓ assistant coach in the Ulster program and then coming down here to to assist in the national programme and ⁓ he just fits in, you know. He's a new face. We'll have another new face joining us in a couple of weeks. I won't reveal who that is just yet. Okay. Well yeah, so we're not getting insider secrets here yet. No, no, not yet, not yet. No, there's lots happening, but ⁓ shaping up to be yeah, it's gonna be a good strong coaching theme for the future. ⁓ Can you talk little bit about the evolution to the selection process what were some of the changes and improvements off the back of that that you've seen. Yeah, yeah, sure. And I guess I've just reflected back on some of the interviews I've done ⁓ recently around the selection process and it's probably worth clarifying that the problem at hand in the old selection process was not the fact that coaches were just making subjective decisions because coaches make subjective decisions all of the time and selection processes have inherently got subjectivity attached to them in some way, shape or form. So subjective decisions were being made, but the basis they were being made on was not tight enough. Was not robust enough. ⁓ there was a number of appeals, and the process itself was, in my opinion, it was probably questionable, and I think we could do something better. So, at my philosophy around performance is very much that the the sport itself can tell you a lot. And to allow the person or people that are being ⁓ selected to prove themselves in the environment that you want them to perform in, So ⁓ there's more to ⁓ selecting a boxer than just technical, technical and tactical work, which was essentially what the old process kind of relied on. Okay. ⁓ And it was done in the in the gym here where That doesn't capture the broader aspects of being in the performance environment. So how are they preparing for their bout? How are they managing emotions in the warm up area? How are they receiving feedback from the coaches? How are they behaving in between the rounds? Yeah, exactly. How are they adapting to tactics and strategies? How are they applying their sleep strategies that week? These are all the you know They're all attributes to creating a a strong performance and absolutely that if there's c core components of that being neglected, it needs to be recognized. Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a great saying, Karl Newell said it, you know, to under to best understand behaviours is to kind of ⁓ watch them emerge within the constraints that they find themselves in. So and the performance environment for us is the best place for that to happen. So was one aspect of it. The other aspect was that the the boxers ⁓ through a review of the selection process felt that. They didn't have it wasn't transparent enough for them. They didn't fully understand it. so part of the new process was about giving them ownership of the selection process. If you want to get onto the team, go and prove it in front of everybody. ⁓ Get the ring and box yourself onto the team, and that starts with the national elite championships. ⁓ And we had two international events where they to perform under the bright lights, under all that pressure, ⁓ and actually show they could ⁓ achieve. Right. And then we would base our selection decisions on the back of that. Okay. Where subjectivity ⁓ was used was just on in terms of welfare. Welfare. Whether a boxer was ⁓ in a position to be able to compete safely and to learn in that environment as opposed to be under significant pressure and have a bad experience. Because we need to obviously you know we need to protect the boxers. so overall you feel like the team have been very receptive to kind of that the the new process? Very much so. The feedback so far has been been very positive. We'll we'll have an a formal review of the process in a couple of months anyway. Yeah. ⁓ but look, appeals are like appeals are never an indicator as to whether something is good or bad because athletes always have the right to appeal regardless. but nothing became contentious, and it was very transparent and very obvious as to how what the process was like to get onto the team. I think we can build on that and we can probably make it better for next year. I was gonna say I think you've also opened up the a a kind of wider athlete pathway too. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the rationale for that? what have you seen as a of kind of position. at the heart of kind of opening up the doors a little bit to development athletes or pathway athletes, whatever way you want to describe them, is is that we need to and I need to, I guess as the performance director, need to have an eye on future sustainability. we need to ⁓ be in a position where all of the weight are well populated. Yeah. ⁓ And we need to be in a position that people come to the performance program for the first time They're not out of their depth, they can kind of get on the treadmill and they know exactly where to be and and and what to do and keep up with everything. So they're not caught in the rabbit in the headlights. So bringing people in for developmental opportunities is part of that education piece. ⁓ and keeping people engaged in the sport. And in particular, ⁓ yo younger people, so the under nineteens and under twenty-threes, for example, there's a key p key piece of ⁓ research. Across a lot of sports. So that's the that's the difficult transition period for young people in sport. It's moving from junior to senior and they fall off and leave sport for reasons. Numerous reasons. And not not always just relating to to sport and poor coaching, because that's the the narrative that's out there. I think keeping them engaged, keeping them retained, keeping them busy, giving them something to work towards, if that goal is always just going to be the Olympics, it becomes about a very narrow pool of athletes. But if we open that up a little bit, I think it it'll help build long term sustainability. And I would say Ireland is leading in that space in terms of I was You know, so impressed by the under nineteens, the under twenty-three ⁓ championship tournaments that go on, like in Europe and everything, ⁓ it's fantastic. Absolutely. And there there are age gra there are age groups that are well populated, but then when you look at the senior elite team, it's not as populated. So some of the weight classes are shallow. but what I mean by that is that if you took a boxer out of a certain weight class, there could be a long time before the next person in that weight class reaches that standard to to compete at that level. Yeah, and to compete for medals at that level. That's a risk for a performance programme, especially when we're time constrained. We've got a four year cycle. And if we don't stay ahead of that and continue to populate those weight classes, we'll get to a yeah, we'll get to a point where it's like, well we've got you know very few people left here to work with, you know. So it's about ⁓ about sustainability and it's about long term development for for the program. ⁓ just that education and exposure piece for young people coming and understanding high performance. it's it's disciplined mindset and full commitment and yeah, you you have to be all in on it to to be to to be successful. Absolutely. you're obviously studying a doctorate in elite performance. while also running an elite programme here. I'm curious ⁓ like what the research is telling you and is there any contradictions in terms of what you inherited or kind of your belief system. guess look the the area that I was researching was in skill development or skill acquisition, how people become within the research there what's emerged over the last couple of years is kind of a a dichotomized to coaching and skill development. So it's it's it's kind of it's kind of narrowed itself down to there's this way and there's that way. There's a right way and a wrong way, a modern way. an old way, a traditional way and a contemporary way. And the position we took ⁓ was that actually there's not more than just two ways. There's probably multiple ways and both of those two methods or approaches that are being pushed actually they consist of a number of different ways but ⁓ everything's just become a little bit too heavy terms of theory ⁓ and forgetting what the practicalities of coaching people look like. So that might include yeah, you do need to use direct instruction, right? You do need to be prescriptive at times. Yeah. The dichotomized approach says that, well, coaches are either instructive and prescriptive or they're not, or they're kind of ⁓ problem based, or ⁓ allowing to just to emerge. So these are the two the two kind of conflicting theories. There's been skill acquisition frameworks have come on the back of those of those ⁓ conversations and research debates and whatnot. like the coaches here, they're for t they're fantastic. They'll use a variety of different methods to assist with skill development. It's never just one way or the other, but combination and a mix of all depending on the context. experienced the open mindedness and the willingness to understand that yeah there are different methods and well styles of boxing and you have to be prepared for all. I think Dee has brought that Damian Kennedy has brought that a different perspective. We spoke here months ago about the use of maybe problem-based learning or you know, solving problems in the ring and rather than giving the boxer the solution, allow them to try figure it out for themselves at times. You know, when the time is right for them to do that. and if they need a little bit of assistance in terms of direct instruction or prescription, then there's a time for that too, you know. No, it's been fantastic. And and I think that that's the biggest thing I take away from my experience is getting me to think in the ring, not just being dependent on a coach's voice. So you own the performance, you own the decision making process. Yeah. Brilliant. I know you've touched a little bit on you've come from the canoeing background and a very different culture. ⁓ What were some of those elements that you brought into boxing something that might have surprised you that you felt boxing actually needed? Yeah, I mean, look, the canoeing programme was smaller. all of the athletes ⁓ in the program in canoeing had an individual plan. ⁓ I thought that would be in place when I came here, but I guess just the size of the program, it's mu difficult. And when you're kind of you know, when you're resource poor, it can be difficult to make sure that every 30 odd boxes has an individual plan. Now we're working on that and we hope to get somewhere with that and move in that direction. But that was the one of the glaring kind of things I was I was expecting but didn't see. But something that I brought from Canoeing to start the conversation around how can we be more individual focused in terms of actual plans, performance reviews, S and C up to a point it was kind of one size fits all. ⁓ But moving the dial on that one now somewhat slightly. When I've come in here, I've I've seen kind of the pack schedule from an international competition standpoint from Strandja to the world games to the continental events. can you give a little bit on c the strategy behind that and what boxers kind of get from that type of experience that they're not getting on a domestic and just a European level? Yeah. So last year, on the back of some internal reviews, the boxers were very vocal about the lack of competitive opportunities that they got. This year, with us joining World Boxing, ⁓ World Boxing have put together a pretty comprehensive international calendar in terms of the ⁓ World Box Cups, which are new, which gave us more opportunities to be able to go and compete and learn in those environments. For me, I think this is this ⁓ kind of under underpins an amount of my own approach to performance in that you need to be you need to be flying the plane, right? There's only so much you can do in a simulator. And you can't, no matter how hard you want to, you cannot replicate performance environment in the training environment. It's just too complex. It just can't be done. You can you can get close to it, but you just can't replicate it. So the more time we spend under the bright lights to use that analogy, ⁓ the more exposure we have to that environment, the more we attune to it. Yeah, the more we get used to it. The walk out, the warm up area, the sleep, the coach athlete relationship, ⁓ the performance under that. Exactly. Well you can't get anywhere else other than international ⁓ competition. And of course, getting an understanding of international judging, because it's different than ⁓ national judging. All informed by each judge's individual culture and their own life experience and their own interpretation of boxing. And look, that's probably one of the the flaws with the scoring system. There is, there is, but we are where we are with that. ⁓ but look, yeah, it boils back to if you want to get good at something, you have to expose yourself to it. You have to do hard things, you know. But with that in mind, and this is the welfare piece and This is the bit that a lot of people don't see because we're watching like hawks development and trajectory of the boxers in the new competition schedule and it has been intense. And we need to be careful that we're not we don't fall into the trap of just throwing ten eggs against the wall and hoping one of them doesn't break. You know, so we have to be very careful about we've we've certainly lifted the intensity, even in the training environment. The competition now has has multiplied tenfold, so we need to be very observant. ⁓ we need to be very careful and we need to be just monitoring and watching athlete welfare as this year, the rest of the year unfolds. Yeah. And I just I was gonna say 'cause the IOC have just approved ⁓ world boxing's ⁓ Olympic qualifiers and that's a also a stacked calendar for twenty seven as well. just kind of on on that point that you mentioned in terms of the exposure to those international events, I think another thing to kind of credit y you and the team on is the ⁓ It's not a case that lost a fight and there's you know, sure there's disappointment, but it's all data for for you guys. And I I really respected that, seeing that even just in in Poland this past week of we got a lot from that. And again, the exposure to that, yes, it's not necessarily always about always about getting your hand raised at the end, but you are you're advancing your development into that environment and you're becoming more c accustomed to it. Yeah, absolutely a hundred percent. essentially what you're referring to is information, right? And that information is going to be present, but it's up to the coaching team and the performance staff to take that information and to use it to make the next performance better. So obviously when you came in, you made changes to the selection process, the coaching, and then overall kind of programming of high I've obviously have exposure to this and ⁓ on a weekly basis, but can you share a little bit of like how that evolved from where it was twelve months ago? Yeah, look, that was just a simple review of of what we were doing here on on a day to day basis. and that's across like obviously there's technical, tactical boxing training that happens here in the gym. But we're in the Institute of Sport here and we've got our our own ⁓ strength and conditioning facilities. We've got a physiologist and a physiology lab, and we've got a nutrition team, and we've got a multidisciplinary team of sport scientists and some of the some of the leading experts in the field, in their fields that work with us. And we're very lucky to have that. But in order to make all of those all of those positions to what we do, well then we have to sit down together and work out where the gaps are in of what we do next with each of those expert positions how it informs performance, etc. And look we a little bit on on S and C. We moved away from track running to more assault bikes and little things like this. Dee has brought in Some shoulder rehab work at the end of the season. Great. Yeah, you know, one of the like one of the of the main kind of injury risks that we have with boxing is shoulder, should shoulder strains and whatnot. ⁓ so we reduced some of the technical tactical work that was kind of rope repetition. lots of it. ⁓ streamlined that body and some extra condition for the shoulders. And look, touch wood, you know, it seems to be tracking in in the right way. was gonna say I love the assault bikes. I I think it's something that's for me, it's something that's replicated as close to intense sparring than anything else. And those sessions are brutal. They're brutal. They're brutal, but they're great. They bring you to the nether regions of your soul. I do want to touch a little bit on the men's team haven't performed as well as some of the women's. I guess you recognize a gap there and ⁓ what in your needs to change within that so that the men are medalling at international level. Yeah. ⁓ guess from the outset we need to be careful about measuring apples versus oranges, ⁓ the women the women's program here is successful. And I think is recognized as one of the stronger programs in the world relative to the other women's programs from other national federations. statistically, there's more men involved in boxing. male boxing's been around for a couple of hundred years. ⁓ women's boxing really got off the ground twenty twenty twelve. I mean the London Olympics and the big breakthrough, The women are performing relative to the top women in other national federations, not some other random recreational boxers. So they need to be congratulated and commended for that They're very process oriented as females tend to be, you know, in combat sports anyway. ⁓ and they're getting the results based on that. So they should only be measured off the other female teams in the other national federations. I mean f for the men, and this is not this is not new, and we've had cycles ⁓ of great results over the years. I From a world championship perspective, a senior medal hadn't been won since twenty seventeen with Joe Ward. And then took a bronze medal in and he he broke that he you know, he broke that chain. ⁓ so it c it comes in cycles. But we've got a young men's team as well. So there's a there's lot of other factors at play and context at play. We've got a young men's team and they're developing and ⁓ We need to be careful as well about medals being the sole kind of measure of whether something's happening. Now I have to be careful saying that as a PD, right? 'Cause the performance unit exists to win medals, right? Ultimately. But when you look at what happened in Brazil, when you see Jude Gallagher taking apart Kazakh boxer and a and a high standard Kazakh boxer like Dean Clancy knocking on the door of a semifinal. These are the unfair decisions, right? There's yeah, just some questionable. ⁓ A percent, a hundred percent. There's little glimmers there of progression within the men's team that are just harder to find and harder to see because sometimes when the medals are won, it takes the attention away from those really important and significant performance improvements to ⁓ there's medals, you know. So Brazil gave us a really unique opportunity because no medals were won in Brazil. A lot of our top medal ⁓ contenders were were yeah, they weren't there, they were either injured or not available. So it gave us it gave us a really unique chance to look at the team, not win the medals and actually identify where the performance improvements are sitting. And there's plenty of them. When you dig into it, there's plenty of them. So there's a lot to look forward to with the men's team. Yeah, no, it's great. I I agree. And some really top talent there as well. And and you know, as much as amateur box is not supposed to be about entertainment, there's some entertaining fighters in this unit as well. Yeah, for sure. touched on something in in in in the previous interview ⁓ ⁓ know, potentially only wanting to send the top three potential medal contenders to LA twenty eight. How do you have a conversation with a young athlete here in the high performance unit who has her eye set on LA twenty eight and what those I think what I was getting at there was just managing expectations around where we are now with the performance team and the performance unit and where we're going to go. Paris had ten qualifiers. It was a an achievement in itself. But out of those ten, Kellie came back with the gold medal and like that's like that an achievement, you know, st a standout achievement. ⁓ and that was ⁓ celebrated. behind that then we have to ask ourselves, Well, why, you know, what happened to to everybody else? And Jack Marley was the only boxer to actually progress over to a second bout. And of course there was some dodgy decisions at play there and Dana Morehouse comes to mind, obviously. but we have to take all these factors on a as a performance unit, we have to investigate why. It's not about us, you know, casting blame on anything, but we have to ask ourselves why did this happen? There's a couple of reasons like we've just touched on, but also they're a very young team. If you look at the average age of medal winners at the Olympic Games, these guys are nowhere near it. So we need to be a little bit patient with them. But ⁓ point I was trying to make was let's not get fixated on qualification. Let's also pay attention to our ability to win medals. At the Olympic Games, which is something that Irish boxing has become accustomed to. to to a young boxer, it's all about it's all about patience. ⁓ it's all about playing the long game in this sport. and it's very when I sit down with some of the guys here and they're young nineteen, twenty, twenty one, it's like they want to get to the top now. It's next week, yeah, and I must train extra hard to get there. And I'm like, that's actually counterproductive, you know. So you have to be patient. You have to be clever, you have to be strategic, ⁓ take every bout, every competition as a learning, and do something useful with that learning to push you on. and of course, even being to the games in itself is an experience that you build on. I think there's probably a there's a statistic there that people that go to the games for the first time rarely win medals. Kellie's an exception there, right? and there are others in other sports, but I think in the majority, they're they don't win medals. So they get the experience, the awe of being in the village. Stepping out to thousands of people watching them. They have to get used to that. Yeah. Come back and perform better. Yeah. And you have I think there's a element of keeping them motivated for the next Olympic cycle. Cause you know, you see it a lot where they're I'm not, I'm not sticking around for the next cycle. Like I want it now. And I hear you on the the this mindset of like I want everything immediate and them recognizing that. they're a they're a young team and I think it is dependent on the life cycle of a of a boxer. you know, I would argue some females develop later on in life in the sport. And so then seeing some of that, but I I know then there's like outside life decisions that they have to factor into those decisions. Yeah, and I as a as a a performance unit, like we have to be mindful of everything that happens outside of here too, and have that holistic approach to their development. You talk about external factors, relationships, college work, what am I going to do after boxing? It's a very important conversation that we need to be having with the young boxers because you can develop an identity that's all about you and boxing. And we you know, you have to be honest as well. What if it doesn't work? What then for you as the boxer? You know, and you've got your social media profile that is just you, the boxer, and all of a sudden that's not your reality. Yeah, not your reality anymore. What happens next? And that can be destructive for people. So we need to keep in mind to that as well. But I think kind of feeding into the conversation about this is a long game, you know, you need to be patient, you need you need to be committed to that long game, ⁓ and just be realistic in your own expectations of yourself and and club coaches play into that too, you know. So that narrative can't only be here. Yeah, it has to be at club level and it has to be at family support level too. So it's a consistent message. Take your time. Yeah, love that. When we look at kind of LA twenty eight and obviously the decision that Zori made to move in with Billy into Team USA, obviously they saw they want to replicate some form of magic that you know they had back here. again, boxing is just as much psychological as it is physical. when your fighters step into the ring, or or fighters, I would say Team Arlen step into the ring in LA twenty eight and they look across and see Zori, what do you what does that moment mean for this program? Yeah, I think. I think the boxers might look across and say they're up for it, you know, they're up for the challenge. I think it look it's a lovely story, right? When you kinda remove yourself from it. Zora and Billy back together again. I mean, they were the heart and soul of of Irish Amateur boxing for so long and brought it to a level that hasn't been ⁓ in previous cycles. You know, we've had our glimmers of of magic, but what what Billy did in Beijing and London and with Zora as his assistant and and whatnot was just it's ⁓ it's incredible. So It's a lovely story in itself that they've come back together. but from our perspective, and this is where the cutthroat high performance kind of talk comes into it, we're there to win, you know. and Zori was in Brazil, and there was banter and and crack and he's a he's ⁓ he's a jovial character, anyone that knows Zori, you know, he's always about the banter and the crack and the bit of stick, you know. but he knows when to switch it on and get serious too, and as do we. ⁓ So if he's in the other corner, as I've said in the newspapers, we'll be giving him no quarter. You know, we're there to win. Yeah. You know, but we'll be respectful and that'll be done with the best of intentions, obviously. And look, Zaur is an Irishman now, a little bit like Jack Charlton became an Irishman. And of course Billy is is Irish ⁓ royal. Give him no quarter and stuff like that. That's the reality of it. We have to be hard nosed about getting our getting our results and you know ⁓ don't care who's in front of us, we'll do our best and we'll try take a victory away from you at all costs. Yeah. Love that. ⁓ yeah, I'm excited for some of the Irish versus US team that that'll play out. Because they've they've had some interactions in the the World Games and yeah, there's a few nice contenders there that bring the best out of both fighters. And I you I've I've I've love seeing the development on on both sides. Absolutely. There'll be a bit of stick, I'm sure. So you've nearly forty years in combat sport. ⁓ Out of all of that, what does this sport still teach you that surprises you? When you walk in to the boxing gym, I don't think any other sport can replicate the diversity and the the inclusion across a number of different groups. We've got the Irish travelling community are here and they're the backbone of Irish amateur boxing in many ways. We've got people with different sexual orientations in the building. We have the children of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean from Eastern Europe ⁓ and from mainland Europe. more I guess closer to home is that we've got people from Catholic nationalist areas in the north and who I identify as British and were Protestant, Ulster Loyalist, and everybody in the same room doing the same thing and there is you know there is no discrimination. There is no second guessing. A shared passion and a shared love for a great sport. Absolutely. And and I I I don't think any other sport can do that to that level. ⁓ and nobody bats an eyelid. Everyone is here to support each other to get on with it. To be honest with you, sport is a model for how society could actually function. But unfortunately, that's lost in the in the greater scheme of politics, etc. But it's a really unique environment. and that never fails to surprise me. When you look beyond LA ⁓ and so beyond LA twenty eight, Boxing Ireland twenty thirty, what do you want to have built ⁓ and what do you want kind of the results to tell the story about? Where I'll go first is the the pathway development piece. I think this is crucial for us. ⁓ we've just appointed Daithi McCabe ⁓ as our pathway development lead. He started this week and he's already working hard getting shape on what that looks like in the future because that will be the sustainability piece that keeps the high performance program functioning well into the future. And keeping that to use that term pipeline, so it's a functioning sustainable. ⁓ system. I think that's going to be crucial. what that allows us to do ⁓ work in tandem and in cooperation with the clubs because the clubs are actually part of the performance ecosystem. We don't we don't exist on our own. They're a fundamental part of that. And it's something I keep harping on about because it's it's it's close to my heart. I came through sport as a volunteer as a volunteer club coach as a volunteer national coach, etc. ⁓ So I the work that these clubs are doing. And I think we can build that collaboration ⁓ so we've got experience in terms of high performance and sports science and bring all that information to the table and the experience of international ⁓ elite level boxing, we can bring that to the table. But the club coaches are bringing the retention piece, they're bringing the fundamentals, the discipline, the commitment, the need to be on time, they need to show up, they need to listen to the coach, they need to play your part. They bring that. ⁓ and the family obviously brings the support aspect to it as well. So when when when those three factors ⁓ are synergised or working together that the high performance program can actually just flourish on the back of that. And this is really, really important and it's something we're gonna consistently work on into the future. So to answer your question, what does it look like in the future? Sustainable? More than one person in a way class is what I mean by that. And a much tighter relationship with ourselves and the the grassroot coaches. Yeah. Yeah, that's brilliant. And because I I I mentioned that in the intro ⁓ for non Irish viewers ⁓ am amateur boxing in Ireland is built on a volunteer based program. and it's kind of unheard of because it's not the across probably one of the best club systems, if not in the world, in in Europe. You know, three hundred and sixty five clubs across the length and breadth of of Ireland and everyone working hard and bringing boxers through. I mean it's it's such a ⁓ an incredible And while I've I've been in and out of the boxing environment all my whole life, I this is the first time I've been fully immersed in it. And just the tradition, the history, the legacy, the passion, it goes back generations. and I don't think any other sport can can celebrate that. ⁓ this is the this is the kind of this is the kind of approach that just makes Irish amateur boxing so good for such a small island on the world stage. And made such an impact across the across the world based on that. Yeah. Absolutely more ways than one, yeah. Yeah. Amazing. John Mackey, performance director of Boxing Ireland. Thank you for your time. You're very welcome. And we look forward to the road to LA and beyond. I hope so. Thank you. thank you all for joining between the I'm your host, Sarah Cunningham, and I'll see you on the next episode.