It’s been almost three years since the organisation made a concerted effort to get the program up-and-running to provide something for budding athletes of all ages.

Trainer Sam Matthews admits it was a slow start to things with just a couple of kids on deck early, but now he’s seeing roughly 50 fighters a week use the gym.

And not only are people using the program, they’re developing and showing a huge amount of promise.

Matthews and three teenage fighters returned from Queensland earlier this week and the bags for one were much heavier than they were on the way up.

Sarah Marsh was one of the three 13-year-olds to compete and she walked away with an Australian title at the national Golden Gloves tournament for amateur pugilists.

“It’s a pretty big achievement given you’ve got boxing teams from all over Australia and New Caledonia and a couple from New Zealand and Papua New Guinea,” Matthews said.

“It’s a fairly prestigious tournament.”

Joey Watson and Harvey Moore were the other two to compete and whle neither made it past the first round Matthews said they gained invaluable experience.

That was particularly the case for Watson, who met a two-time Australian champion in his bout.

“In NSW there’s no competing until you’re 14,” Matthews said.

“What we’re trying to do is develop young guys so they’re at the same level of experience as these others.”

That has meant a lot of travel for Matthews and the youngsters, with seven trips to either Queensland or Canberra already recorded this year.

There’s been plenty of success on the road – Moore won the Queensland novice title recently – there is a huge amount of excitement around the return of a PCYC fight night at Dubbo.

That will be on November 17, with three PCYC fighters confirmed to be stepping into the ring that night.

“It was a slow start and we’ve been slowly growing,” Matthews said, the fight night at home set to be the highlight of the development.

“At the moment on any day of the week we’ve got up to 50 people coming in and out of the gym so we’re getting good numbers and you can see the effect it’s having a lot of people, even some of the younger guys who aren’t competing yet. Being around that environment and seeing the older guys who are competing, it gives them a goal to work towards.”

Matthews is also a perfect person to learn from.

The son of a former boxing gym owner in Dubbo, Matthews journey as a pugilist has taken him all over.

Who had a handful of fights at home under the training of Gary Macfarlane, who still coaches at the PCYC, before making his way around outback Queensland for a number of years with the Fred Brophy Boxing Tent. 

The real highlight of his career came when he spent time on the Gold Coast, where he trained under former Australian title holder Gavin Topp.

“I trained under Gavin for a couple of year and trained up there and then I came back here a couple of years ago,” Matthews said.

“I wasn’t boxing and had got away from it but I missed it and started training a few kids here and it developed into a full-time job.”