On Friday night in the Athletes Village in Tokyo, Zaur Antia burst into Bernard Dunne’s bedroom wearing only his shorts and declared to his boss. “We’ve got it, this is the plan.”

Ireland’s boxing head coach believed he had found a way for Kellie Harrington to beat World champion and gold medal favourite Beatriz Ferreira in the lightweight Olympic final.

Ireland has won two gold, two silver and five bronze medals in Olympic boxing since 2008 and the Georgian native has been a pivotal figure in them all.

Regarded as one of the best technical coaches in boxing Zaur and the coaching staff had spent most of last Friday reviewing video tapes of Ferreira’s performances.

Fifteen judges had scored the 15 rounds she had boxed and just two had scored a round against her.

“We had been watching videos of her,” recalled Dunne. “But then we got another video of her against the Korean opponent. There were little bits in it that we had taken.”

Harrington has two unique assets which set her apart. She can box in either orthodox fashion or a southpaw stance.

“She is very talented,” according to Antia. “She is two boxers at the same time, she can be southpaw, she can be orthodox. She is unique.”

Dunne, Head of the High-Performance Unit, believes that Harrington’s ability to maintain her focus and follow the game-plan regardless of the pressures is what makes her a champion.

“Kellie just implemented the tactical plan perfectly. The best thing Kellie has shown here is her focus and concentration and her ability regardless of the pressure to still perform. I mean that last round just . . .”

According to Zaur the plan was to win the first round. Though disappointed when John Conlan told him it had gone 2-3 against her, he wasn’t too perturbed.

“I was thinking it should be on our side, but she dealt with it. More work, more sidesteps, very good, more sharp attack, more feints, often change style and she (Ferreira) cannot adapt.

“They didn’t know what to do. But once Kellie changed style that plan disappeared. Everything worked very well. We had good chemistry in the corner,” said Zaur.

Technically Harrington is a better boxer than Ferreira whose style is more suited to professional boxing.

In the last minute of the second round Harrington was landing the more accurate punches while staying out of range. Still, there was surprise when all five judges opted for the number one seed. Their decision changed the momentum. Harrington now had a virtually unassailable lead (20-18) on two judges’ cards and the contest was level on the other three.

Harrington needed just one of the three judges who hailed from Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uganda respectively to give her nod in the third round. But the scoring meant that Ferreira had to be more aggressive. This was exactly that the Irish corner wanted, and Harrington underlined her class in the last three minutes by bossing the contest. Ultimately the boxer prevailed over the warrior.

Still, It was unbelievably tense as everybody in the stadium waited for the official verdict. But given the way the judges had scored the fight up to then, there was little doubt they would give the nod to Harrington in the final round.

As soon as the announcer said “and by unanimous decision” . . . the dream had become a golden reality.

As there had been no standing counts, knocks down or points deducted in the last round only Harrington could win on a unanimous decision 5-0 decision.

So, 29 years after Michael Carruth had staged a stunning upset to secure the gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics Kellie Harrington had done likewise at the Tokyo Games.