GARVEY Kelly bounced back from his shock defeat to stop Gabor Feher in Northern Ireland on Saturday night.

The Swindon welterweight went into the contest against the Hungarian 19-year-old following his sixth-round stoppage loss to Faheem Khan in February.

But the 26-year-old showed no signs of being affected by that defeat as he put pressure on Feher from the opening bell at the Lavey Sports Arena.

Having dominated the fight from the off, Kelly had Feher on the canvas in the fourth round and then again in the fifth when the fight was waved off.

Kelly’s trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick was delighted with the performance his fighter put in on the undercard of Eamonn O’Kane’s IBF middleweight inter-continental title defence.

“Garvey was fantastic,” Fitzpatrick said. “I had people coming up to me after the fight saying that my ‘welterweight was class’. He won a lot of fans here.

“To come into a fight having been stopped in your last one and to get a stoppage win is superb – you couldn’t have asked for anymore.

“Garvey’s preparation for this fight was excellent. He put down a 13-stone guy in sparring, and when we went to London you could see that he had visibly hurt the guys he was in the ring with.

“He was really spiteful and it came off.”

The Ferndale Road-based trainer is now looking to get Kelly back into the ring later this month on a Mickey Helliet show in London.

“The show here was done in conjunction with King Kane Promotions and Mickey Helliet,” Fitzpatrick said.

“I asked Mickey if he had anything coming up and he said that he has got a show in London in a fortnight’s time.

“That would be perfect for Garv as he has family in east London and it will also be close enough for people in Swindon to come and see him.”

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick was pleased with how O’Kane overcame a bad cut from a clash of heads to pick up a majority decision over the previously unbeaten Lewis Taylor.

With blood pouring out from above his right eye, the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist had to be patient before taking the close decision.

“I tip every one of my 50 or so hats to Lewis Taylor,” the trainer said. “He boxed out of his skin.

“But Eamonn got the job done and now we can start looking towards get him a world title shot.”

The Swindon trainer also paid tribute to O’Kane’s father Lawrence and his brother Gary for making the show possible.

“A couple of weeks ago the fire regulation people came out and said that they would only allow 875 people into the venue because the doors were too small,” Fitzpatrick said.

“But Lawrence, who had never put on a boxing show before, went to the Lavey Sports Arena and asked if he could pay to make the doors bigger so that we could get 2,000 people in.

“It was because of him that the show was such a success, everywhere we went there was posters and banners – it was superb, and we are looking to come back.”