GEORGE Groves and Paddy Fitzpatrick have backed Garvey Kelly to bounce back from his shock defeat.

The Swindon welterweight suffered the first loss of his professional career on Friday night when he was stopped in the sixth round by Faheem Khan.

The Exeter-based southpaw had the 26-year-old down in the second round with a big left hook and it was that shot that was giving Kelly so much trouble.

When Khan had Kelly down again in the final round referee Jeff Hinds had seen enough and called an end to the contest.

Kelly’s manager Groves, who himself bounced back from two defeats in world title fights to work his way into a mandatory position for the WBC super-middleweight belt, told the Advertiser that his charge will come again.

Groves said: “It is a tough game boxing and you learn tough lessons and he has learnt one much quicker than he hoped.

“I told him don’t worry about it, go about your business, wake up in the morning, be angry with it, be emotional with it if need be and we will go from there.

“We will rebuild from here, it is early on in his career – this is the time you can make mistakes.

“Tonight he made a mistake, he will learn from it, he is a student of the game, he’s a very impressive human being and I have no doubt whatever he wants to do in life he will be a success.”

Kelly’s trainer Fitzpatrick, who also trains Groves, Luke Watkins and Eamonn O’Kane, says that he was gutted to see his fighter beaten.

However, the Ferndale Road-based coach is confident that the welterweight will come again.

“If it was anyone else I’d be really worried, he will be gutted but he is a realist,” he said.

“He understands people like (Bernard) Hopkins lost his first fight, Johnny Nelson lost I don’t know how many of his first fights.

“They went on to become world champions for a long time.

“They are two different styles of fighters, but what I’m trying to say is careers don’t always start off the way you want.

“Eamonn got a loss in his 10th or 11th fight, George in a world title fight.

“But it is how you get up, how you dress yourself down and how you move on.

“He is lucky that he has two great fighters in camp on how you do that.

“George Groves is bold as brass – even after the loss in May he still stood up like he owned the world when he went out for the (Christopher) Rebrasse fight.

“He understands the game, he understands what can happen - it is not the end of the world.

“He is gutted, I’m gutted for him, but if we are going to stay in this game you will lose rounds and you will lose fights, sometimes you will lose by stoppage - there are very few men who retire undefeated.”