MILDURA’s Ladd’s Boxing Club have continued their stellar form putting on strong performances at the weekend’s Australian Club Championships in Adelaide, coming home with four gold and two silver medals.
Coach Jackson Ladd said he was “proud” of the team and expected a bright future for all of them in the sport.
“We went as well as I expected we ticked off a few goals that we wanted to achieve and some things we ticked off we didn’t know we were going to tick off at the time.”
Gab and Lainesia Toutai both came home with gold with Gab winning a club championship belt and Lainesia being awarded junior boxer of the tournament.
“Gab fought against an Australian champion, at this point, he’s had about 12 fights and he fought a guy who had 56 fights and out-boxed him, he couldn’t get near him and every time he threw Gab had an answer so he just schooled him,” he said.
“Lainesia played with her opponent in the first round and when she came back to the corner I said to her ‘Why don’t you get rid of her’ and she said to me ‘I’ll get rid of her this round’ and she did and got a round two stoppage.”
Meanwhile, their brother Henry Toutai fought valiantly and showed heart against Australia’s king of amateur boxing and Commonwealth Games competitor Callum Peters, taking home silver in a hard-fought battle.
“It was a goal of ours to fight Callum and he hung in there with him and showed he can hang with guys at that level, it was a really good experience,” Ladd said.
Charlie Cooper also came home with a silver medal in a good technical fight and Ladd said he was impressed with the improvements shown.
“He had a really good fight and tried something different and tried to box with his opponent,” Ladd said. “He didn’t get the win but the improvement was really good to see from him in trying something new.”
After a few narrow decision losses, Hamish Berry showed his improvement, beating an opponent to who he had previously lost and coming home with his first win.
“The opponent was pretty confident he was going to stop Hamish and Hamish out-boxed him, it was pretty emotional and unreal to see that happen,” Ladd said.
Finally, young gun Robert Burns dominated his opponent in his second-ever fight.
The crew will once again head to Adelaide for fights in June before getting ready for Mildura’s own Hogarth Cup in August.
