One Night in Millstreet – Film Review
by Frank L.

Director – Andrew Gallimore
Writer – Lydia Monin
Stars – Steve Collins, Chris Eubank, Barry McGuigan

In March 1995, Millstreet in County Cork hosted the super-middle weight boxing championship in a fight between Chris Eubank the reigning champion and the challenger Stephen Collins originally from Cabra. This documentary engages the many unlikely elements which came together to make this a unique and memorable event.

Mill Street is a very small village in North Cork.  Noel C. Duggan is a unique visionary who makes things happen on a grand scale. Millstreet is his home and he was the developer behind the Green Glens Arena, a very substantial structure measuring 80 metres by 40 metres. In 1993 RTE used it as the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest. The success of that venture made it possible for Duggan to repeat the trick with a world boxing championship fight in ’95.

Collins was very much the underdog in the lead-up to the contest and he employed Tony Quinn, a hypnotist and a man who thinks outside the box, on how to prepare mentally for the contest. Gallimore details the various strategies pre-fight, which Collins and Quinn utilised. The documentary also details the challenges which were facing Eubank including the fact that Collins was on his home turf and the mental challenges Eubank was facing following the near-fatal injury that he had inflicted on Michael Watson in 1991.

The interviews with Collins and Eubank are revealing and show the intelligence of each of them. The interviews with Quinn add a further dimension while the wisdom of Noel C. Duggan adds a delicious rural self-assuredness to the mix. Writer Paul Howard who was a sports journalist adds his worthwhile insights into the pre-fight mind games.  The fight itself is shown in some detail and has its own inner tensions.

However, what shines through is the sensitive articulateness of the main protagonists. Both Eubank and Collins are thinkers and both can use words elegantly to make their point. They also have respect for each other. With these fine interviews and an underdog story par excellence Gallimore has created a documentary which adds to the lustre of Noel C. Duggan’s arena in Millstreet. It is a documentary of which all participants can be proud.