"I knew what I was going to do," says Ward

Just minutes after beating Kenneth Egan to retain his national senior title, Joe Ward was in his dressing room surrounded by reporters who wanted to know if he was confident he would win an Olympic medal. "I have to qualify first!" he pointed out. The Moate boxer will now have a chance to do so at the final Olympic qualification tournament in Trabzon, Turkey, in mid-April. To book his ticket to London, Ward must either reach the final of this tournament or lose in the semi final to the eventual winner. Last Friday, in front of a full house in Dublin's National Stadium, the 18-year-old boxed exceptionally well to defeat Egan (30) on a huge scoreline of 29-10. When asked what went right on the night, Ward said: "No disrespect to him as he's a great fighter, but it's a young man's sport. That's the way I look at it. I really enjoyed being in there and I'm happy with my performance. "Kenny's a real good boxer. He's a legend, but it's good that there's someone new coming in to take over from him. Hopefully I can do as much as he did. I just have to keep things going now, and keep doing what I'm good at." Despite the high-profile build-up to the contest, which was televised live on RTE Two, Ward said he was "fully relaxed" when he climbed into the ring. "I knew what I was going to do. If the first plan didn't work I had a second plan as back-up, but I didn't need to use it," he said. His plan was "to keep going forward, make (Egan) miss and then counter.... I would come forward, feint, make him miss and then catch him with two or three hard ones. It worked. I had him hurt a couple of times and the referee gave him a count as well." Although Egan had a large fan base at the National Stadium, there was also a reasonable contingent from Moate and other parts of Westmeath who cheered on Ward. When asked what the local support had meant to him, he said: "It means a lot. It's half the battle when you're in the ring and you have a good crowd behind you. You want to go in there and enjoy it and hear a lot of people roaring. As you could see, there were a lot of fans for Kenny and a good few fans for me, and I really enjoyed that." He said he was qualifying for the Olympics "the hard way" after losing on a countback against Iranian opponent Ehsan Rouzbahani at the world championships in Baku last October. If he had beaten Rouzbahani he would have automatically qualified for London. Ward stated that his "head wasn't right" at the world championships and he also said he didn't perform at 100% when he won the European Championships in Turkey last summer. "When I boxed in the Europeans I wasn't really at my best but I got the results and did enough to win. But as you saw (against Egan) I'm back to my best and boxing the way I did when I was 15 and 16, winning world titles. "I have a huge talent but I just had to go back to the drawing board after the defeat and I think it did me the world of good. It wasn't nice to have to take that defeat but sometimes it can be good (in the long term)." "I think there's loads of improvement to come from me because I'm still only 18," he replied. "Nobody's perfect. I can still make my technique a bit better and improve on my accuracy. You can always improve. I have no weakness at the moment but I can always build on the things I have." He thanked his corner men, Eddie Bolger and John Joyce, and also expressed gratitude to the Irish Sports Council for "looking after me." Ward said he and Egan were friends outside the ring, and the 2008 Olympian was gracious and sporting in the aftermath of his defeat. "Joe is as strong as an ox. I can't handle his strength," admitted Egan. "He had his game plan right. I fell short a few times and he was catching me with the cleaner shots. Well done to him. "I wish him the best of luck in the qualifiers and if he qualifies I'm going to put a couple of grand on him to win a medal!"