Brendan Irvine moved seamlessly into tomorrow's semi-finals of the Strandja multi-nations in Sofia, Bulgaria with a comprehensive victory over Kosovo's Bashkim Bejoku this afternoon.

This was the first competitive action for the Glencolin man since he secured a place at the Tokyo Olympics during the European qualifier in London last March, but displayed no ring rust in a unanimous decision win.

It was a cagey opening with both feeling each other out, but the Kosovan - boxing at southpaw - was first to land cleanly. 

Irvine soon found his range and timed his right through the guard to respond and his work was a little crisper as he found the target with better.

The left jab to the body was working well for the St Paul's ABC man and by the second he was landing regularly with the right and employing good movement to leave Bejoku swinging at air.

A tangle of legs saw the Kosovan stumble and Irvine decked him with a right, but it was ruled no knockdown although the Belfast man looked like he was beginning to hurt his opponent who was now a little ragged.

Bejoku was offering little in the third as he tried to make it scrappy with Irvine now into his groove as his class began to tell, landing a beautiful uppercut. He was scoring at will and a straight right saw Bejoku sag onto the ropes and while a left signalled an act of defiance from the Kosovan, Irvine finished strong and forced a standing count to leave absolutely no doubt as to who the victor was.

Irvine will face Bulgaria's Dan Asenov, the man he beat to qualify for the Rio Olympics, in the semi-final.

Aoife O'Rourke will also be aiming to upgrade her bronze medal to at least silver tomorrow thanks to her 4-1 win over Turkey's Sennur Demir this afternoon. The Castlerea BC middleweight will face USA's Naoimi Graham.

Walsh
However, at lunchtime, Michael Walsh exited the tournament at the quarter-final stage of the women's 57kg class as the Black's Road woman was edged out by Russia's Karina Tazabekova.

Michaela Walsh was left disappointed in Thursday
2Gallery

Michaela Walsh was left disappointed in Thursday

Walsh enjoyed a size advantage and used this to good effect early early as she boxed off the back foot and used her longer leavers to score as Tazabekova looked to find her range.

The Russian was using controlled aggression and did enjoy some success with an eye-catching left finding the target, but Walsh came back with her own shots and appeared to edge the round.

The Russian closed the gap early in the second as she got on the front foot and tried to make this a fight on the inside, enjoying early success. A well-timed left caught Walsh as this contest began to warm up with the Monkstown ABC fighter also finding the target with counters as the pair traded.

It appeared all to play for heading into the final frame and the action highlighted that with both scoring early as they tried to take charge. Tazabekova was again on the front foot, but Walsh was timing well, employing her jab to measure the distance. The Belfast woman was again back into her flow with Tazabekova forced to eat some beautifully-times rights on the way in, but the Russian would score late.

Still, the feeling was that Walsh had enjoyed the better of the contest but the judges somehow disagreed, scoring it 3-2 for the Russian to leave Walsh disappointed.