David Savage (Argo) edged a home victory at the Drumchapel Sports Centre on Saturday night after he and Forgewood’s Michael Roberts were all square going into the fourth round of an excellent contest between the two old rivals.

Savage was always the more aggressive compared to Roberts effective countering and his massive following might have been the difference between the two as the screaming crowd forced him to gamble and take the fight to Roberts in the last. It paid off though and he bagged the night’s best boxer award after an international class display by both lads.

I hope all of the young boxers who were in attendance were paying attention as this is the standard they should be aiming for.

Most of the evenings other bouts were marred by some inconsistent scoring.

Those who read my reports know that I try to steer away from controversy and if I can’t say something positive then I try to say nothing at all. However I believe we have a major crisis as far as the judging of bouts in Scotland is concerned.

It’s certainly not the fault of the lad, who perhaps gets the nod for a bout he felt had slipped past his grasp, if his hand is raised. The boxers themselves are their own biggest critics and they know when they have got the rub of the green. All would probably agree though that they would rather there was a foolproof system in place to ensure that all results were called fairly and accurately.

It is a well known fact that all three districts score to different criteria. I don’t personally know too much about the northern approach although I think it’s on the high side, but in the west we (try to) apply rule 24 to the letter and only score blows we actually see landing with enough force to warrant the point. In the east I believe the criteria is to score what you believe is a scoring blow and the results at the end of bouts reflect this theory.

I personally think the one second interval for verifying a scoring blow is too tight for some of our judges and would point to the difference in top line scoring versus bottom line scoring as the proof of this anomaly.

There are various other conspiracy theories which favour red or blue, right handed judges or left handed judges, etc., but I just don’t see the system as it is working at the moment.

I watched a bout on Saturday and on my notes had one boy 17-14 up at the final bell. The result came back at 11-1 the other way!?! OK, the bout was close and judging is about perception, but why on earth do we continually seem to see different bouts? I’m not saying for a second that anyone was cheating, as the judges will honestly call it as they see it, however why is there such a difference?

This can only be addressed by a national forum on judging and all three districts adopting the same scoring criteria. One for the R&J to offer guidance on I think.

This was not an inter-district judging anomaly on Saturday though, just a difference of opinion between several qualified judges.

Apologies for diverting from the show report, but there were so many scores I had issue with (not most of the results, just the scoring of the bouts) I couldn’t honestly write about them without being negative and I don’t want to do that to the lads who all give their best.

A special mention has to go to the evening’s referee who was excellent. It’s never popular to stop a contest for at least 50% of the participants, but the boxers’ safety is the one thing we can’t play Russian Roulette with and Ian Hislop called every one of the four stoppages right in my view.

That’ll be me in trouble now but enough is enough and I have been banging on about this privately among fellow officials for a while now. I for one do what I do for my lads, not for myself, and if I take one on the chin for trying to do the right thing then C’est La Vie.

Results

John Docherty (Auchengiech) won v Kyle Ritchie (Argo) RSC 2nd

R McLaren (Springhill) won v Hamish Mair (Argo) pts 9-1

Michael Jamieson (Irvine) won v Scott Sinclair (Argo) Rtd End 2nd

Jamie Taplin (Auchengiech) won v Gavin Crawford (Argo) pts 5-2

Davie Cowan (Sparta) lost v Davie McInally (Doon Valley) pts 4-8

Chris Craig (Kilsyth Golden Gloves) won v Jay McIlhaney (Drumchapel) pts 14-10

Ryan Hood (Sparta) lost v Cori Scott (Millenium) pts 2-6

Craig Johnstone (Drumchapel) won v Stuart Collins (Forgewood) pts 11-1

Lewis Benson (Sparta) won v Sean Quin (Auchengiech) RSC 3rd

Robert Morrison (Irvine) lost v Taz Isurad (Argo)

Jamie Kerr (Irvine) lost v Paul Allison (Millenium) RSC 2nd

Michael Roberts (Forgewood) lost v David Savage (Argo) pts 5-9

Exhibitions

Dylan McCann v Nicky Carson (Both Argo)

Daryl McCutcheon (Irvine) v Sam McCarthy (Drumchapel)

Andrew Rippey (Drumchapel) v Connor Robertson (Argo)

Ryan Kelly v John McCairn (Both Auchengiech)

Awards

Best Boxer of the Evening: David Savage (Argo)

John McCluskey