IN only his sixth senior contest, Lowestoft middleweight Billy Innes, 18, took on and gave a good account of himself against experienced national semi-finalist, Southend ABC’s Richard Gray.
Boxing on the undercard of the Eastern Counties senior championships at the Ocean Rooms, Gorleston, Gray came out from the opening bell hoping to intimidate his younger opponent launching into a two-handed attack that had the Lowestoft man boxing on the retreat.
But far from being intimidated, Innes counter-punched and moved on the retreat and it was not long before Innes was forging forward, throwing sharp straight left and right punches that had Grey covering up and moving backwards.
The second and third rounds saw two evenly-matched boxers give a fine display of boxing that left the decision on a knife-edge.
The duo boxed fast and clean throughout the contest and, even though a lot of experienced coaches thought Innes had done enough to win, the judges fell in favour of Gray.
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