CRYMYCH boxing twins Ioan and Garan Croft stand tantalisingly one bout away from fighting for Commonwealth Games gold ahead of the penultimate day of action at Birmingham’s NEC Hall.

The Cardigan ABC 20-year-olds are among six Welsh boxers guaranteed of equalling a record haul of six medals achieved at the 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff – future world champ Howard Winstone winning the solitary gold.

Garan faces gifted Northern Irishman Aidan Walsh in an eagerly-awaited light-middleweight (71kg) semi-final at 4.30pm on Saturday, while Ioan meets Scotsman Tyler Jolly – an opponent he has previously defeated – in their welterweight showdown at 8pm.

Walsh, a bronze medallist at last year’s Tokyo Olympics, underlined his pedigree with a quarter-final win over Bradford’s hotly-fancied Harris Akbar, who earlier this year became only the third Englishman to win a senior European crown since 1961.

Yet a frustrated Akbar – widely regarded as a gold medal favourite going into the Games – was barely able to lay a glove on Walsh, a hands-down, hit-and-run merchant who will undoubtedly be hoping to prove an equally elusive target for Garan Croft.

Although the Irishman will start favourite he appeared fortunate not to have at least a point docked for holding against Akbar and such tactics could prove counter-productive against a superbly-fit pressure fighter like Croft, who will be looking to hunt Walsh down remorselessly from the opening bell.

In the 67kg division Ioan will be striving to repeat a previous win over Jolly at last year’s Socikas International Tournament in Lithuania.

Croft will enter the ring knowing that his Team GB team-mate was somewhat fortunate to survive a heavy knockdown against Neville Warupi, of Papua New Guinea, in the last eight.