On the advice of a friend, he instead attended St. Eugene's Boxing Club and quickly proved himself adept at boxing, later stating that he fell into the sport "by mistake". He won schoolboy boxing titles at regional and national levels before being selected to represent Ireland for the first time in 1969, travelling to Dundee for a meeting with Scotland. He competed in the 1971 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Madrid, where he was one of three Irish boxers to claim a bronze medal, and won his first All-Ireland title the same year. He would retain the title the following year and was also chosen to compete in the men's flyweight event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.