Egan, a silver medal winner at the Beijing Olympics, boxed well within himself to earn this evening's victory and now awaits the winner of tomorrow's clash between Tommy McCarthy and Brendan Fitzpatrick.

"It was great to get a competitive bout under my belt and fair play to Denis he came out to fight and he gave me a good contest, " said the Neilstown southpaw after his win.

Meanwhile, John Joe Nevin, fighting competitively for the first time since last August's Olympics, advanced to within one bout of claiming his second Irish title in a row after recording a 16-6 victory over Tyrone McCullough.

But the Cavan bantamweight, Ireland's second boxer to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, was made to work all the way for this win against an opponent who was never more than three points adrift in the opening two rounds.

However, Nevin opened up in the third - and despite receiving a public warning for dropping his head - forced Walker into a standing count en route to victory.

David Oliver Joyce, a gold medal winner at the 2008 EU Championships in Poland, became the first St Michael's Athy boxer to make it to the finals with a 9-5 victory over Carlow featherweight Dermot Lawlor.

But once again the more established boxer had to earn his passage into the final the hard way as Lawlor kept slugging it out up to the final bell.

Lightweight Ross Hickey progressed at the expense of Ciaran Bates, while John Joe Joyce edged to within nine minutes of bagging his fourth Irish title on the trot after earning 17-7 verdict over Michael McLoughlin.

Joyce picked off some beautiful shots in the second round of this light welter encounter - but McLoughlin responded with a thudding right of his own to remain just four points in arrears. However, Joyce upped the tempo in the third to put the matter beyond dispute.

Stephen O'Reilly, an eight times Irish champ at underage level, booked his ticket into the middleweight final and defending heavyweight champion Con Sheehan availed of a public warning to edge out Jimmy Sweeney.

Joe Joyce withstood a furious fight back from Anthony Crampton in the final round to make it to the super heavyweight final. Conor Ahern received a walkover after Neil Walker failed to make the 51Kg weight.

The weigh-in for tomorrow evening's semi-finals will be held between 8am and 9am and 12 noon and 1pm at the National Stadium.

Boxing begins at 7.30pm tomorrow night.