“Life’s a Bitch and You Get On With It” – Keary on Bouncing Back from His First Defeat
“It was hurtful, but life’s a Bitch — and you get on with it.”
That’s how Donagh Keary sums up his mindset heading into his first fight since suffering a surprise defeat in Windsor Park.
The young Castlewellan prospect admits the reverse really hurt, but he’s taken the loss on the chin, learned his lessons, and is now hungrier than ever to show what he’s made of.
“I was ragging for a week or two and thought my life couldn’t be worse,” Keary told Irish-Boxing.com. “A lot of things went wrong — I made a lot of mistakes that I’ll learn from,” he adds before expanding on some of the errors he made.
“I was cutting down to 122, then got an opponent a couple of days before at 125,” he explained. “I went out and tried to kill him, didn’t pace myself. I lay on the ropes a lot, nothing was landing clean, and I was getting outworked. I was being told I was winning the fight, so I was comfortable enough to do that — but it was the wrong mindset.”
Keary has an Irish great in his corner in the form of Ryan Burnett, who he said gave him great advice, reminding him that even the best have to go through tough learning nights early in their careers.
“Ryan told me to use it to make me more hungry and not to worry about it — it’s a learning curve,” said Keary. “I’m hoping to show everything I’ve learned this year. I’ve had three tough opponents early on at 21 and learned a lot about the game and how different it is.”
His promoter Jamie Conlan sang off the same hymn sheet.
“I agree with Jamie [Conlan] — I’ve lost before plenty of times as an amateur and always came back better,” he added. “I’m not a quitter, and in a couple of years I’ll look back at it and laugh.”
