AN ITALIAN JOB ON THE HORIZON.

Byline: BERNARD O'NEILL

IRELAND wil get its AIBA World Senior Boxing Championships campaign underway with three preliminary round bouts in Milan today.

Declan Geraghty, Philip Sutcliffe and Cathal McMonagle will all be in action at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan.

Dubliners Geraghty and Sutcliffe will face Manyo Plange of Ghana and Tralan Lupu of Romania, in the flyweight and light welter categories, while Belfast super heavy Cathal McMonagle trades leather with Croatian puncher Thomas Markovic.

Meanwhile, Olympic silver and bronze medalists Ken Egan and Paddy Barnes and Irish senior champion Con Sheehan all received byes, Tipperary heavyweight Sheehan drawing the short straw as he meets Cuba's Osmai Duarte Acosta.

Egan however, got what looks like a favorable pairing after he came out of the hat versus Muhammad Sutani Quadir of Afghanistan, while Barnes is up against Peter Munka of Kenya.

However, if Barnes beats the African then he could face Cuban light flyweight Daniel Ramos with a place in the quarter-finals up for grabs.

Meanwhile, Beijing Olympian John Joe Nevin is facing a tough task versus Ramir Najafou of Azerbaijan.

CAPTION(S):

PRIZE GUY Ken Egan