FORGET your patronising jokes. Forget your stereotypes. Forget your loud mouthed, ego filled, villain led professional game. Forget your black ties and dodgy scoring systems. Forget wild eyed aggression and pre fight eyeballing. Forget it all. Forget jockstraps and bring on chest protectors. Forget eye tests and pass the pregnancy kit. The noble art is opening its doors well slightly.

Niamh Fitzgerald has never had an amateur fight. She trains three times a week. She spars with other women and with her male coach Dan Curran. She is captain of Trinity Boxing Club. But she's never exchanged blows in the ring. No woman in Ireland ever has yet.

It sounds like the perfect cover for an inadequate male trying to fashion a street cred image a boxer who doesn't fight. Fitzgerald is hoping, however, that she will be allowed to fight for the university in this, her last year at college. The Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) have already agreed that women should be allowed become part of their organisation but are at a loss as to how they can be assimilated into the current international structures.

At the moment National bodies are permitted to organise competitions for women and report back to the international federation so that they can formulate guidelines at international level. But so far nothing has happened in Ireland.

"There was a women's committee formed and they were put in charge of women's needs. We did all of that and now feel that the Irish Amateur Boxing Association are dragging their heels" says Philomena Sutcliffe chair person of the women's committee.

"A medical commission has made out a medical card for women who want to box and they would have to fill this in before becoming involved. We have discussed protective gear and duration of rounds, but they (IABA) don't seem interested."

Heidi Steiger, an official in the AIBA headquarters in Berlin is clear that women may fight but only at national level.

International amateur boxing won't happen. It is nonsense to talk about it before there are rules. We don't know what the doctors think. Maybe they will say no. But national bodies have been authorised to organise competition and report back to the international federation. The experience of the national bodies will then be given to the doctors of the international federation."

Trinity Boxing Club is used to being a passing enchantment for students. Curiosity in the outer limits of the sport where men strip and fight has its appeal. Every year in the front square of the university the clubs pedal their wares and vie for signatures from guileless Leaving Certificate students. The more people in your club the bigger the grant.

"Join the film society and see crap films every night," said one insightful advertisement. Boxing cannot afford to be so proud of its possibilities. "Join the Boxing Club and get punched every week." No, it wouldn't work. Still with 67 members, boxing is bigger this year than it has been for some time with Fitzgerald in as club captain, the first time ever a woman has headed the male dominated club.

"I don't even know what protection we'd have to wear, probably a head guard, chest guard and groin protector. We'd probably have to go through a similar medical to what the men would go through, but a pregnancy test would be the main concern," says Fitzgerald.

When she first went down to the gym two years ago she over heard someone say, "Don't worry, the girls always leave after a few weeks." That alone was a challenge. Two seasons on she is still challenging.

The old science library in Luce Hall is an apt environment for the 21 year old pharmacy undergraduate to train in. Tall, rangey and bespectacled and visually more the academic than the pugilist, the light welterweight looks to the possibility of her first fight with some trepidation.

"I want to prove myself just once. I want to see if I can really do it in the ring. I want to see if I can get myself into that state of mind where I can get into a ring with someone else who's trying to hit you and who's really trying to hurt you. I'm going to be scared out of my wits. But that's the thrill of it. It's getting over that conquering it and going in.

"I've seen the guys before a fight and it's really made me want to box. They really were conquering fear. They were so nervous. I've never seen people so nervous. I know some of them well and they could hardly talk because there was such an atmosphere. They all say you can't help the fear. It made perfect sense though."

Fitzgerald has been in the ring sparring only five or six times. Her coach Dan Curran or other women from the 2 strong representation in the club act as partners. But never any of the men. Too strong. Too aggressive.

Having started in October of 1994 frustration has begun to set in as the authorities endeavour to iron out their position. Fitzgerald hangs on dissatisfied, learning drills but not fighting, shadow boxing but not punching, training but unable to get into the ring. Like a dedicated smoker hoping to get a kick from a stick on nicotine patch. Fitzgerald works out as often as many of the men who would have started at the same time. Coming into college in October, they would have had their first but three months later.

"I didn't want to fight in the first year," she says. "I Just wanted to train and spar. I hadn't got to that mental stage where I wanted to fight. Now I've only a year left. After that I wouldn't want to join an outside club. I think it would be rougher and I don't think I'd be as well received as a woman as I am in Trinity."

Ideally the "blooding" would be against a UCD student of her own weight division in a colours fight (a fight in which she would officially represent her university against UCD). The colours match for this academic year is in February and unless the IABA sort out their guidelines and accept the proposals of their women's committee before then, it won't happen. Trinity would also have to find an opponent in what could turn out to be the first ever official amateur women's boxing match.

"I'm not a savage," she points out. "I'm not dying to knock anyone's head off. I just want to see if I can do what I've been training for, if I can remember what I've been taught.

"People also say that you're going in there to hit someone. But I say they're going to hit you. It's a decision they've made and it's a decision you've made. It's no difference from running down a rugby pitch and making a tackle. You're going in and you're trying to take them down. That's sport. That's the way it's always been."

That rugby players now call tackles "chits" suggests that the analogy is a fair one. Her understanding is as good as any. That is fortunate because Fitzgerald is a boxer who may have to explain herself more often than, say, if she were a man.

Significantly, she plays down the role of aggression and emphasises craft over brawn. "The guys you sometimes see hitting harder than they should in sparring. It happens all the time. I don't think girls are that aggressive. I think girls really listen to what the coach is saying, possibly because they have never fought before. From the schoolyard guys might have a preconceived idea of throwing a punch. Girls are building from nothing. You don't have to correct bad habits."

Dad's proud. Mum doesn't like the idea at all. Too rough. Too frightening. Too much worry. Too many other things her daughter could have chosen. In reality her mother's concern echoes that of the AIBA. But as it stands now the Irish Amateur Boxing Association can, if they wish, sanction a bout and report back to the parent body.

Women have competed in Europe already, particularly in Sandanavian countries, so if Niamh Fitzgerald fights for her colours it will not be a precedent.

It's now down to how the luminaries in the National Stadium see it and whether they're prepared to purchase the chest protectors and acquire some pregnancy kits. More importantly will the IABA be blinded by tradition or will they contribute to a broadening of their sport by allowing women to compete?