Two Irish Open Champions for Red Star!

The Irish Open

A review, an analyses and our journey towards gold.

The Irish Open International is a modern Kickboxing phenomena.

2015 saw it reach it’s 22^nd year. It also saw it reach participant numbers of well over 4,000. Phenomenal.

They say success is a result of many synergising factors or a number of things that coincide within a time frame to create the environment for success to develop. With that in mind, I would like to pay sincere credit to the people behind the Irish Open. The folks who have worked tirelessly over the last 22 years to create the type of opportunities that allow such an event to take place, on such a huge scale, on our door steps here in Ireland.

Roy Baker certainly has the Midas touch when it comes to Kickboxing. He’ll tell you different, but that’s just him. What he says in relation to the success of the Irish Open is simply modesty at play. He is right however, there is a huge team behind it, but without his vision 22 years ago, without his commitment to the event, without his desire to influence the Irish Kickboxing scene, without his approach that puts the fighter first – none of this could be realised today in 2015. I remember Roy, when I was a kid at the Irish School of Taekwon-Do coming down to train with us and telling us of his new tournament that he was working on.

Congratulations to Roy and his team.

In relation to our own results, they too have been phenomenal. 2014 was the first time we notched up championship status at the Irish Open. Lauren Bradshaw took home the gold in the +70kg’s and Brendan Kenny, who had joined us six months previous, also notched up a victory winning the -84’s. Both Brendan and Lauren are unbelievably committed young athletes. They’re entire life revolves around their training.

Brendan came to Red Star as a good fighter. He had notched up some nice victories in some small international tournaments. In order for him to develop into the fighter he is today, he had to adapt and modernise his movement. As his new coach, I was concerned at how long this would take him. He had some small habits ingrained in his movement that would inevitably be exploited by real world class fighters and at his first outing with us at a high level, he was left reeling after been beaten by Eric Melhorne of Elite Fighters at the senior national Kickboxing championships. He was swept, kicked and countered by Eric. This was the eye opener for Brendan. From here he took every part of our training programme and worked it to the bone. Two years on and he’s now Irish Open Champion for 2015 taking on the very best in the world in the -79kg division.

It seems Lauren has been training and fighting since she was born! Lauren joined Red Star when she was 7 years old. Since she was 11 she has competed internationally with us. Throughout those years she competed at similarly small international tournaments but as our training adapted and modernised, she too led the way as our ambassador on the international stage. In 2012 as coach, I made a decision to move away from the smaller international tournaments and seek out the larger, tougher international events. Our first big one came in Bulgaria in 2012 when she won the ITF European Championships. This was the ITF under Prof Chang Ung. This ITF, the largest in the world at that time, put forward a huge championships with the largest division Lauren had ever fought in. In true form, she nailed it, and from there on we started our journey, next up for us was the obvious step into the world of the WAKO international tournaments. Lauren became WAKO European champion in 2013.

Not to drag this post into the realms of our history, but it is important to note one thing. That one thing is in line with the phenomenal success the Irish Open is, the commonality is this; success takes time. It takes time, commitment, hard bloody work, real tears, and passion, but most of all it takes courage. As a relatively small club in Dublin, we could have easily stayed the pace attending small level international tournaments. But we didn’t want to. The sport we were involved in was evolving at a fast pace and we wanted to be apart of it all. We took a gamble but we were eager to learn and eager to up there with the best. Our gamble paid off, for now. We never take anything for granted, and while we have two Irish Open champs training at Red Star, that was yesterday. That was last weekend. We still have work to do and we’re still eager to learn and move forward with our sport.

The Irish Open itself ran seamlessly, or so it seemed from the outside. No doubt behind the scenes the organisers were operating on a higher level of consciousness! In fairness to them, they made it feel seamless.

This year Red Star had a slightly larger team registered, we also had Alan O’Connell who was going to take on the elite of the -69kg division. Alan is a Red Star veteran and is never afraid to step up to the mark. Alan is a different fighter than he was last year and without a doubt he will make his mark. Alan had a tough opener and lost on a split decision (2-1).

We also had Darragh Murphy from Galway. Darragh has only recently joined Red Star and is on his own journey now as he adapts and brings his own flavour to his sparring. Darragh won his first bout in the -74’s against Wales. Next up he fought Colm Carroll who is the current junior WAKO world champion. Darragh certainly learned plenty. Movement at this level needs to be experienced, and from there on it needs to be understood and the training methods adapted. Darragh has plenty of potential and I look forward to watching his improvements over the next few years.

In the novice division we had Pawel Dabrik. Pawel is a new comer to Red Star and the Irish Open was his third tournament in Kickboxing. All credit to him for making the big step in to such a huge event. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be for Pawel this time, losing out to a British fighter. Everyone has starts somewhere!

Lauren’s division was comprised of a current WAKO European Champion from Team Blue blood in Britain and a current WAKO World Champion from Italy. Lauren had already been beaten by the Italian last year so it was a huge challenge for the 17 year old who had cut weight to also compete in the -70kg division.

After dispatching her first fighter from Wales with a unanimous decision she faced the European Champion in the next round. If she was to win this, the Italian world champ had just won her fight and waited for Lauren in the final. I would have been just happy with some improvements that we had been working on to have shown themselves in the fight, winning was a bonus. Well the improvements were there, along with a comprehensive victory over the European champion. Job done, for now!

Next up we had the current world champ in the final. It was easily Lauren’s hardest bout to date. The Italian rocked her with a sharp right hand in the first round which put Lauren on to her back. She was shook, I’ve never seen her so shook. Knowing her as I do, I knew that inside her is an aggressive spirit but to access it you have to be very autocratic with her, and so I was – “get it to together” I said sharpishly. “you can beat this girl, now don’t be giving me any nonsense, no tears you’re meant to be a fighter” – I told her. She sucked it up and got back to business. The Italian hassled her and knocked her to the ground more than twice later. But, her well timed techniques had the Italian chasing points. In fact Lauren’s timing was impeccable. Although she might not have thought it, she was picking off points as the Italian drove forward knowing she was behind. In fairness to the excellent judging they spotted every simple technique that scored.

With 10 seconds left the Italian came for the kill bashing Lauren to the floor again and as she sat there, blood in her mouth, tears in her eyes not knowing that time was up, I turned to her and said “Jesus you won the bloody thing!”. It was a bitter sweet victory!

The Italians were annoyed that Lauren was knocked over so often. I don’t think they realised that it was their fighter that knocked her over! In my experience rushing in to bash your opponent never works in continuous kickboxing. This is where impeccable timing and movement overcomes. And it did, Lauren had won the Irish Open.

Brendan had dropped weight from last year and was competing in the -79’s for the first time. It was a tough division with 48 fighters registered. The former world champion was there, last years Irish National Kickboxing champion was there, last years Irish Open champion was there, Robbie Haugh was there!

I wasn’t too concerned about Brendan’s opening bouts. He beat Austria easily enough, he then dispatched Switzerland as he was starting to warm up. Next up was a former WAKO world champion from Belgium. This was a cracker of a fight with Brendan taking a close split decision. However, the semi final and final now comprised of fighters from Robbie Haugh’s Elite fighters gym. Last years winner Colly Gilshinan was next in the semi’s. Robbie’s fighters are always clever. They’re tactical, they’re super fit and they can box as well as kick. Brendan had already had a knock with Colly in the final of the senior nationals. Brendan had won that bout but Colly was destined to learn from that and come back with a new game plan. Colly was fast, aggressive too. He closed the distance incredibly fast and had Brendan under pressure in the first round. We changed the tactics slightly and opened up a lead with some deceptive head kicks, Brendan maintained a lead and took the win.

Phil O Gorman had stormed his way to the final on the other end of the draw sheet. Phil is a class fighter who has made significant improvements since last year. We had to be clever with Phil.

It was classic final. Light contact continuous kickboxing at its best. Phil went up, then Brendan went up, then Phil went up again. On the break we had a narrow lead. Sometimes a narrow lead on the break is not the greatest place to be in, especially when Robbie Haugh is sitting across from you. They changed tactics to take back some scores in round 2.

Phil blitzed Brendan, just as Colly had done a round previous. Brendan tried to counter with a back kick but his timing was off and he exited the ring. A second exit that resulted in a minus point. Brendan was behind with about 30 seconds on the clock.

We chased and chased, we brought it back to a draw. We chased some more, then Brendan stopped chasing. He held his ground, I thought maybe he thought he was ahead! I reminded him we needed scores, Brendan still held his ground – Phil also needed scores. It was then I realised what was to come. Brendan maintained range, Phil blitzed him and boom… off went the back kick, this time scoring to the ribs. Phil dropped to his knees and the scores flipped. In that 10 seconds, Brendan had taken the win. Very clever thinking by him, whilst being under pressure. That’s the fighter Brendan is. A thoroughly well deserved win for him.

So with all that said and done, it’s time to put those wins in the drawer and now move on to the next challenge. The WAKO junior Europeans are this year in Spain. This is Lauren’s last year as a junior. We’ll have our goals set for this.

The WAKO senior World Championships are in Ireland this year, this will be Brendan’s first year as a senior. Lots of challenges ahead, but we love challenges – it’s what drives us on.

For now the internet is buzzing with all of the clubs that represented themselves at the Irish Open. We are but a small part of a huge movement of sport kickboxers. Everyone should be proud of themselves that attended and put themselves up against the best that’s out there. Those that didn’t attend, need to ask themselves – why not? Your egos are not as important as those people that come to you for training, coaching and opportunities.

On we go.

Jon Mackey