Darragh Kelly aims to box clever against Mathias Poiron

Darragh Kelly enlisted the help of Olympic boxer Emmet Brennan ahead of his clash with Mathias Poiron.

The Moville mixed martial artist faces Poiron at the 3Arena on Saturday night – and believes some work on the sweet science has aided his preparation.

Tokyo Olympian Brennan, now 3-0 as a pro since flipping over to the paid ranks, founded the FightR gym in Dublin's north inner city.

Kelly has trained regular in the North Strand venue, which was set up by Brennan, Jordan Moore and Eric Piggott.

Moore, who has won six Irish titles including U22 and Intermediate crowns, will join Kelly's coach John Kavanagh in the corner on Saturday night.

“This has been a different camp,” Kelly says. “I had an injury and I've been going to FightR twice a week since. I've just changed it up to give it a new look.

“Camp has been very good and I have a good game plan ready to go. I just thought that this would give me a bit of a more rounded game and bring me on.

“There is a great atmosphere in FightR. I've done a lot of one-v-one stuff with Jordan. At times, we'd work for an hour and 45 minutes at a time.”

Kelly and his team have studied French fighter Poiron at length. Porion is 7-1 as he flies into Dublin and Kelly says he wants to show a different version of himself in the octagon this weekend.

“In the past I've been too eager to engage in grappling too quickly,” he says. “That is very taxing and you can gas very quickly. I want to be a bit more comfortable on my feed and let the hands go; hide the take-down attempts behind the striking.

“I think sometimes it has been very easy to make a game plan against me because I have been uncomfortable on my feet.

“I have more confidence and believe now. I don't think there'll be as much time on the floor this week, but if I get there, well that's my bread and butter. I just need to be more energy efficient.”