Top boxing coach sets out path for more success

The man driving the resurgence in Australian amateur boxing has been taking Perth's coaches back to school.

Boxing Australia head coach Kevin Smith held three workshops in the city last week as part of the program to standardise training across the country.

Smith said getting everyone on board would lead to further success, as he looks to build on the two golds and one silver Australia won at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

"We're just trying to introduce a more standardised coach education program," Smith said.

"In the past coach education has been delivered individually by each State, and there's a lot of variances between the States. So when the boxers join up (with the Australia team) you're trying to understand how they've been taught. Often it's just terminology.

"With this, when the boxers get together, they're up to speed straight away, they understand what you're talking about. All the coaches understand what we're talking about when we get together. We're all talking the same language right from the start and it helps each other understand what we're all doing."

Englishman Smith said the workshops also offered coaches a crucial support network.

"I was telling the coaches that back home in Liverpool, there's a rule in the association that you can't be within one mile of another gym, which is 1.6km. In Australia, it'd probably be within 100 kilometres of another gym!" the Everton-supporting father-of-six said.

"That's the geographical difficulty in Australia, being near other gyms and other coaches and being able to communicate more easily. They are geographically isolated and you probably begin to feel isolated as well.

"The beauty of having coaching workshops is being able to get everyone together. We're all teaching boxing and want what's best for our boxers and we all want to improve our coaching skills as much as we can as often as we can."

Smith looks on as Watts celebrates her gold medal win over Laishram Devi of India. Pic: Getty Images

Smith, who is based at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, acknowledged a lot of what he and national development coach Don Abnett were showing the coaches was rudimentary.

"Yes, sometimes the most obvious things are the things you don't discuss. And the things you don't pay much attention to," he said. "And then you have a gap in the coach's education.

"The simplest things, you think 'I know that'. But some coaches have never even considered the simple things, so it's no point in doing advanced boxing techniques if there are gaps lower down the chain.

"Again, it's not a case of we don't want to come here doing advanced boxing techniques, of course we do, we want to upskill the coaches as much as we can. But there's a starting point to what's a never ending pathway … don't start halfway round the marathon, start at the beginning.

"What we're doing with these boxing workshops, this is not to get immediate results. This is a long-term strategy to develop boxing in Australia as a whole, it will be the younger boxers who come through in four, five, six years' time who feel most benefit from it. So this is all about the long-term development of Boxing Australia and the coaches and our boxers.

"After all, we all want what's best for our boxers. So you won't get coaches refusing to come and attend workshops and work with each other. I learn from coaches every day, so I never expected any coaches to not appreciate what we're trying to do."

After Australia's boxers drew a blank at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, as well as at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, their gold medal haul in Glasgow was bettered only by England's five.

Jordan Samardali won two bouts before being caught by a flash knockdown in his quarter-final. Pic: Ian Munro/WA News

Smith, a former head coach of Scotland and Nigeria, took up his post a few months before this year's Commonwealth Games began and his contract runs until the 2016 Olympics in Rio. The age of many of the squad gives him confidence for the future.

"Everyone's happy (with what we achieved in Glasgow). I'm never surprised, because when boxers are well coached and prepared, I always expect them to do well. It's only when you haven't been able to do a good preparation you worry if they'll perform or not. But if you prepare well and you're ready there's no reason why you can't achieve success.

"Andrew Moloney (who won 52kg gold in Glasgow) has already turned professional. I think he's having his first pro bout in October. But the rest of the team is relatively young. So I suppose it bodes well for the future, that a young, relatively inexperienced team can go and achieve success in one of the major tournaments.

"It shows the coaches in Australia are already doing the things well, they're already doing a great job. And it's great for me to be able to work with well-coached boxers, it makes the national coach's job much easier.

"As for Rio, it's going to be a lot more difficult to get fighters to the Olympics because the qualification route for Australia is now through Asia as opposed to just Oceania. So we've got a lot of strong Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Japan, China, India, there's a lot of strong boxing nations who will contest the spots to qualify."

Hoping to make Brazil are at least two West Australians - light-heavyweight Jordan Samardali, who reached the 81kg quarter-finals at the Commonwealth Games, and middleweight Caitlin Parker, who won 75kg bronze at the Youth Olympics in China last month to add to her silver at the Youth World Championships earlier this year.

"Jordan's got great skills, he won a couple of contests," Smith said. "He was unfortunate that he suffered a flash knockdown in the quarter-final. There's still room for lots of improvement, as in any boxer, and Jordan's only a young boxer.

"Caitlin came over and joined us for the preparation camps, helping boxers who were preparing for the Commonwealth Games and it was fantastic to have her there."