KEIGHLEY Amateur Boxing Club coach George Metcalf is delighted with the progress of teenager Jamaal Rehman.

The 16-year-old won the Yorkshire Region Junior Championships title at 63 kilograms late last month, before losing in the National Junior Championships quarter-finals on Sunday in Bridlington.

But Metcalf is still delighted with what the Oakbank School Pupil has achieved over the last few weeks, saying: "He may have lost that bout in Bridlington, but he came away with a Yorkshire title the weekend before.

"Anyone with less than 10 bouts to their name can fight in these Junior Championships, so he boxed a lad from Wakefield in the Yorkshire final and did well to win that.

"That put him into the national quarter-finals in Bridlington, where sadly he lost to a fighter from Shildon, which is up in the North-East."

Metcalf was unable to attend Sunday's bout, so left Rehman in the capable hands of his other coaches, John Daly and Mark Ingham.

Former Keighley mayor Metcalf said: "We could only send two coaches to Bridlington and John and Mark were training him before I was, so I thought they should get the reward of taking him.

"The pair of them volunteer their time to train all the kids at Keighley ABC every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and in Jamaal's case, they did a tremendous job getting him ready for these championships."

Asked what is next for Rehman, Metcalf said: "He did well to reach those quarter-finals, so it's onwards and upwards for him now.

"We're hoping to get him a few more fights under his belt in the coming months, before he moves on to a higher group, which he'll have to once he reaches 10 bouts.

"Jamaal's got ability, he just needs to put it into practice, and work out how and why he lost his quarter-final on Sunday.

"He'll move forward and I'm sure he will listen, as he's got two great coaches in John and Mark, and then me, a former national boxing champion, in his ear.

"Jamaal's one of the better boxers we have at the club, and he's in the Yorkshire training squad, though he obviously couldn't be part of that at the weekend, as he was fighting in Bridlington."

But Rehman isn't the only young boxer at Keighley ABC that Metcalf has high hopes for.

He said: "With Jamaal up in Bridlington with John and Mark, I took one of the other lads, Reeno Traviato, to the Yorkshire squad camp in Huddersfield.

"They put about 50-odd youngsters through their paces, all with the end goal of seeing who can represent Yorkshire in coming bouts.

"We have 15 lads carded at Keighley ABC who are ready to box and they're hungry for fights, as the pandemic took the sport away from them, with bouts only really happening again in the last month or so."