Dunne enough – Bernard Dunne believes Kellie Harrington deserved the nod

High performance director Bernard Dunne feels Kellie Harrington should have got the decision in Bulgaria yesterday.

The St Mary’s BC fighter suffered a somewhat controversial defeat to Nune Asatarian in the last 16 of the Strandja multi-nations in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Wednesday.

The verdict, falling the way of the Russian via a 4-1 split after three competitive rounds, was contested by many observes post the result being read out.

Harrington was one that wasn’t too pleased with the scoring and questioned the judges in the ring post the result be called out.

Dunne was a bit more diplomatic in his approach but did agree the genuine Olympic medal hope did enough to get the nod.

“We would have thought that Kellie did enough to win,” Dunne told Bernard O’Neill.

“The primary objective coming out here was to shake off the dust and get ready for June (Olympic qualifiers).

“I thought Kellie landed more scoring scores. We’ll have to wait until a higher analyst is done.”

The result and the manner in which it came about was disapointing but Bulgaria was about getting rounds more than anything else.

With that in mind Dunne was happy the World Championship gold medallist got two fight and six rounds in ahead of the June Olympic qualifiers.

“Kellie needed a couple of fights out here, and she had a couple of fights out here.”