THREE Tavistock boxers, Bohdan Popovych, Freddy Owen and James Crossey (from left to right), made the journey to Poole on Saturday for the latest in-ring action.

Bohdan, taking part in his first representative bout, was first up against Keiran Jackson of the home club.

From the outset, this bout showed the degree of aspiration of both boxers. Bohdan boxed well but was taking as much as he was giving, good straight punches from both and thirty seconds into the first round Bohdan took a straight right and the referee gave a standing eight count.

Excellent powers of recovery saw Bohdan return the compliment and then start round two strongly, showing basic but effective style.

Round three saw two tired boxers, but of the two the Tavistock man seemed fresher, his punches coming more freely and Jackson under pressure early in the round took another standing eight count.

Bohdan applied more pressure and twenty seconds later, Jackson took another standing eight count. The referee then stopped the bout in Bohdan's favour to round out a great first outing.

James Crossey was the next Tavistock boxer to enter the ring, his opponent the muscular Keith Basharan from the host club.

From the outset this was a tough test for James, Basharan relied on a two-handed attack with little finesse, it was initially overwhelming for James and he was pushed on to the back foot.

The first round saw James land little but there were good indications that he still had much to offer in the competition. Round two saw both boxers step forward, with some good punches coming from James, although his work rate was insufficient to counter the number of punches coming from the opposition.

A good turn off the ropes showed some skill but what was required was a greater number of accurate counter punches. At the end of the round James was visibly tired.

Round three started well with a greater sense of urgency and for a while it became a much fairer contest, the middle of the round was Basharan's however and his greater strength became evident, James gave a spirited performance in this round but his tiredness was evident. The bout was given to Poole's Basharan by unanimous decision.

This just left Freddy Owen, returning to the ring after a 15-month layoff. His opponent was Ozam Khan from Crawley. Fred had to lose some weight at short notice to take this bout but succeeded and arrived at the ring ready to go. Initially, the advantage seemed to lie with Fred being slightly taller.

It all began at a frantic pace and with a couple of good body hooks, Fred enjoyed a solid first round.

The pace remained and an evenly-matched duo were separated by Fred’s impressive footwork.

In the third, Fred started well, in fact probably the best start to a round in this contest, good combinations and a superb check hook had his opponent backing off. Halfway through the round though Fred ran out of steam!

This became a battle to maintain a defence against the efforts of Khan who was encouraged by his corner to come forward. Fred still had sufficient in reserve to last out the round but it was close. The winner was Tavistock's Freddy Owen by a split decision. A close-run thing but a very fair and entertaining contest. Both boxers received the plaudits from the crowd in probably the best bout of the evening.