Gough-Barrett final eagerly awaited

Twelve counties - and all four provinces - will be represented when the finals of the national championships are staged at the National Stadium in Dublin next Friday night.

The counties represented are Antrim, Tyrone, Dublin, Louth, Cork, Waterford, Wexford, Clare, Derry, Westmeath, Mayo and Sligo.

Among those defending their titles will be Liam Cunningham from the Saints club in Belfast who meets Darren Campbell from the Glin club in Dublin in the final of the flyweight division. Although Cunningham is expected to retain the title Campbell has done enough in the preliminaries to suggest that he could spring a surprise.

At featherweight, Pat O'Donnell from the Docker's club in Belfast defends against Terry Carlyle from Sacred Heart in Dublin who beat the experienced Damien McKenna from Drogheda in the semi-final. O'Donnell narrowly beat Terry's brother Aodh in last year's final.

Aodh is now in this year's lightweight final where he meets the holder Eugene McEneaney from Dundalk.

The contest which many neutral fans will certainly want to see is the welterweight final between Neil Gough from Waterford and Francie Barrett from Galway, now living in London.

Gough stopped John Morrissey from Cork in the semi-final but Barrett struggled to a 10-9 victory over Robert Murray from Dublin, which suggests an intriguing contest. Barrett will be anxious to make up for last year's defeat when he lost to Eugene McEneaney in the final of the lightweight division.

At light welterweight, where a vacant title is up for grabs, Mark Wickham from Ennis meets Paul McCloskey from Derry and this should be a close-run thing, which can also be said of the middleweight final where the holder Brian Magee from Holy Trinity in Belfast may struggle to beat the promising Kevin Walsh from Sunnyside in Cork.

At heavyweight, the defending champion John Kiely from Belfast meets Ben McGarrigle from Omagh in an all-Ulster clash.

The champion is also defending in the super middleweight division where Stephen Reynolds from Ballinacarrow in Sligo takes on John Kinsella from Crumlin in Dublin. Reynolds is rated very highly but the fact that he did not have to fight in the semi-finals - his opponent James Clancy from Phoenix withdrew - might tell against him. Still he is expected to win.