“THESE ARE THE dreams of a sleeping father,” sang Aslan frontman Christy Dignam to an adoring crowd, some 700 strong, at Good Counsel GAA Club in Drimnagh on Saturday night.
And Lord knows Carl McDonald had dreamt of this moment for the bones of his 29 years.
“He sees a child…
“He sees his eyes…”
Two hours after Dignam’s hair-raising four-song set during the Celtic Clash 7 interval, it was McDonald’s own child who was bowled over by his father as ‘The Cobra’ lost his balance en route to the ropes, a combination of exhilaration at hearing himself proclaimed the new Irish super-bantamweight champion, and exhaustion having gone through 10 gruelling rounds to achieve it, taking its toll.
A chip off the old block, the felled youngster rose instantly through a crack in the subsequent stampede and resumed his own celebrations, gleefully clasping onto his father — his champ, the champ — who had climbed the ropes only to be hauled down and devoured by onrushing members of his family and team.
The Good Counsel club custodians must surely have feared for their hall roof.
There will never be pre-fight entertainment like this again. #CelticClash7 pic.twitter.com/Rj0mbLU2q9
— Gavan Casey (@GavanCasey) November 24, 2018
Post-fight, the ring in the middle of that hall became the perfect snapshot of boxing’s peaks and troughs, and how they’re rarely miles apart.
As bedlam ensued on the jubilant red side of the squared circle, a glance in the other direction was in its own way more jarring: in the blue corner’s Tranquility Base, Dylan McDonagh — a Jobstown neighbour of McDonald — briefly rested his head on the shoulder of one of his own team.
He was doubtless cognisant that he had fought one hell of a fight. He would have known, too, that he hadn’t done quite enough to sling the emerald belt over his shoulder.
McDonagh had finished second-best in a fight billed ‘The Battle of Jobstown’, but whenever he’s ready, he can take solace from the fact that he conspired with McDonald to produce an Irish title encounter that will live long in the memories of the few hundred who parted with the few bob to attend, all of whom got more than their money’s worth.
Somewhere near 11pm, as the din of the crowd peters out toward the jam-packed carpark and adjacent Luas stop at Goldenbridge, the victorious McDonald stands upstairs still fully kitted out and dripping with sweat, title in tow, adrenaline evidently still coursing through him.
Giddy to the point that he seems ready to go another couple of frames, he beams and shakes his head.
“I just started slow, man — I don’t know. I couldn’t get into gear.
“The ref scared me, to be honest, when he took a point off me. He was doing me no favours. I don’t know what the story was, to be honest, with the ref. I was trying to pull my right arm out and he said I was holding him [Dylan McDonagh]. Taking points off me — he told me he was going to disqualify me!
I had Dylan in my ear, laughing in my ear, playing mind games! From round 1 to round 10 — every round — he [McDonagh] was hitting me with his head, laughing in my ear. I never get wound up but I just wanted it so much, I was getting wound up. I was getting caught up in it.
“I dunno, I was letting him into the fight — I dunno what it was. I wasn’t scared coming into the fight — I think that was the problem. I think I knew I could win the fight easy, and I think I just fell asleep mentally.
“Luckily, I picked it up at the right time, and I did what had to be done — eventually, like,” he laughs.
I just tried to bring it to the street, make a ‘straightener’ out of it. And that’s my world, like. That’s where I do my damage. And I just came out on top.
It was when McDonagh had his own point deducted for excessive holding in the ninth that McDonald knew he was home and hosed, but he wasn’t quite cocksure in the eight wearying rounds which preceded it.
At one point, McDonald recalls, he “went back to Eddie [Hyland] and looked him in the eye and said, ‘Don’t lie to me — are we still in the fight?’” To which his trainer, Hyland — one of the famed Dublin boxing brothers — replied: ‘Well, we have to get the finger out of our arse and kill this cunt!’
“That’s exactly what he said to me,” McDonald laughs. “Eddie doesn’t beat around the bush — Eddie’s straight in, no kissing.”
McDonald, who earned a European top-15 ranking in victory, is now intent on seeing how far he can go on a continental level. He’ll fight anyone, he says, before jokingly adding, “Gator don’t play no shit!” — a quote from the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy The Other Guys which has clearly taken on new meaning in the gym.
“How can I go wrong?” he asks. “We have the ‘A’ team. I’m with these lads since I’m 12 years of age.
“Like I said in my first ever interview, loyalty is everything in this game. My team are… Like, we’re not a team — we’re a family. We always have been. The boys are like brothers to me. It gives you that kick in the arse that you need when you have to fucking wake up and go to the trenches.
“I didn’t think I had to go to the trenches! But I had to go to them fucking trenches to win that title tonight, like.”
Of course, that was due to Dylan McDonagh, who McDonald, Hyland and team could scarcely believe less to be a ‘C’-word in reality despite the fight-talk in the heat of battle.
“There’s still a lot of respect between me and Dylan,” says ‘The Cobra.’ “It takes two to tango in there. It was a great fight not only from me — I wasn’t in there shadow-boxing!
His beard was cutting the bleeding face off me, the bastard. I can’t wait ’til I can grow a beard!
“We said it in the ring,” McDonald adds. “I’ll meet up with Dylan. I’ve nothing but respect for Dylan and his team. He’s a great lad, he’s always been a great lad.
“We’re from the same town. If one does well, we all do well, you know? I’ve supported him at his last couple of fights — I’ve been there, and I shook his hand when he got out of the ring.
Like I said [in Round Zero], we all go back to the one place anyway for after-parties after his fights and my fights. Win or lose. We’ll go back and shake hands and have a drink. There’s nothing different today, you know? I’ll even buy him a pint…
However many cold ones Carl McDonald and Dylan McDonagh wound up sinking between them, they were each of the hard-earned variety. And they probably won’t be the last.
