The Battle of Jobstown – Carl McDonald wants Dylan McDonagh NEXT

It’s not so much that time is running out – more that the time is now for the Battle of Jobstown.

Carl McDonald [4(0)-2(0)] won the BUI Celtic featherweight title in sensational fashion last month and he is now dead-set on fighting for the Irish title at his more natural weight of super bantam.

There is currently a lack of eligible fighters – bar one, and it’s a fight which looks to make too much sense not to happen.

Jobstown bantam Dylan McDonagh [3(1)-1(0)] gained Irish title eligibility at the start of the month, hails from the same area as McDonald, holds a similar outlook on the fight game, and has even fought ‘The Cobra’ before.

McDonald, boxing for Golden Cobra, defeated McDonagh, boxing for Westside, in the semi-finals of the 2015 Irish Intermediates, a tournament he went on to win.

A repeat with ‘The Firecracker’ is a sure-fire cracker, and McDonald isn’t the only one who thinks so.

“I’d 100% take it, no problem at all,” McDonald told Irish-Boxing.com.

“People come up to me, people I wouldn’t know, some would be Dylan’s friends, asking ‘are you and Dylan going to fight again?'”

“Everybody enjoyed it over three rounds, imagine how they’d feel over ten, it would be really good.”

“I’m sure he’d give the same answer as me – ‘if he wants it, I’ll take it’. It’s what’s being mooted to me and Dylan is probably hearing the same things.”

“I 100% want the Irish title next. Hopefully on the next Celtic Clash, it would be unbelievable on the next Celtic Clash. Two title fights in consecutive fights would be unbelievable.”

McDonald sees plenty of similarities between himself and his Tallaght ‘rival’.

Neither boxer care for the ‘0’ with 29-year-old McDonald losing an extreme short-notice fight to Jordan Gill back in May and 32-year-old McDonagh being edged out by Sean McGoldrick earlier this month.

Both losses came from the away corner on Matchroom bills and both fighters view the defeats as learning experiences as they look to make a sudden impact in the sport.

McDonald explained how “it’s the same with me and Dylan, we’re that bit older than the other lads. We kind of need to get it done now, whereas the other lads are 21, 22, they have three or four years to build their records and experience.”

“In three or four years time, me and Dylan will be at the end of our career, we need to get things done now and try get the momentum going and build on that.”

“I’m sure he’s building the exact same momentum as me with his fight on the last Celtic Clash and then his fight in Wales.”

“I just want to be in big fights, win or lose, that’s what we’re in the game for.”

“I know a lot of people say it all the time but we can all beat up journeymen – I’d rather lose a hard fight than win an easy one.”

The Eddie Hyland-trained fighter is speaking one month on from his upset title win over Cork’s Colin O’Donovan in the headline fight of ‘Celtic Clash 6’.

Much the smaller fighter, McDonald put in a frankly stunning performance, outboxing and outworking his Rebel rival and quelling a late charge with a seventh-round knockdown.

Things have changed for confident Carl since and he notes how “it’s sunk in now, I think you recognise it more when it’s people saying it to you.”

“It was more the manner of the performance. I’d be lying if I said I expected it to go exactly like that, even I didn’t expect it to go like that. I suppose it was all the hard work I put in in training that paid off on the night.”

“I’m walking down the road now and people I’ve never even seen before are telling me that ‘I saw your fight on Facebook’ or ‘I saw the result’, ‘well done’, ‘congratulations’, ‘keep up the good work’, ‘you’re doing the community proud’.”

Doing the staunchly working class Jobstown area proud is a big thing for McDonald – and a major reason in why he is so keen to face McDonagh.

With the National Basketball Arena being used for an Assassin Boxing show on October 6th, the local lad is dreaming of something similar.

McDonald described how “Jobstown’s a great community in itself. When somebody is doing something for themself, everyone recognises it and nobody begrudges you. Everybody likes to see people do well for themselves in the area.”

“There’s more good stories than bad ones but it’s like everything, the bad stories top everything and they’re from a small minority. All in all, it’s a great community”

“Listen, if you could get the fight in the Tallaght area, that would be absolutely unbelievable. Two Jobstown lads headlining in Tallaght, for a title, that would be unreal, deadly.”

And a fight is all it would be, with McDonald at pains to stress that there is no bad blood between the pair.

“After Celtic Clash 5 and Celtic Clash 6 we went out afterwards and had a few drinks,” he revealed.

“There’d be no rivalry, I have no hard feelings toward Dylan and he’ll tell you the exact same about me. The only rivalry there, and we’d laugh and joke about it, is Westside and Golden Cobra. That’d add a little spice to it but nothing bad, just friendly banter.”

Photo Credit: Ricardo Guglielminotti – The Fighting Irish (@ThefIrish)