THE DAILY RECORD REPORTS
I'VE BEEN MUNCHING PIE AND MASH WHILE SCOTT'S MADE DO WITH PORRIDGE Dec 6 2006


As Cook has another sly dig sports shrink Tom warns Harrison to ignore the taunts

By Hugh Keevins


WORLD title challenger Nicky Cook stuffed his face yesterday while Scott Harrison stifled his anger after a day of open provocation by the Cockney.

Cook's mind games ahead of Saturday night's showdown at the Excel Arena in London's Docklands have already enraged the Scot.

And yesterday the European champion from Stepney made a show of heading to his favourite pie and mash cafe for a tuck-in knowing Harrison is fighting to make the weight for the weekend.

Cook also goaded the title-holder about his spell in a Spanish prison.

The Londoner said: "A bit of pie and mash is better for you than the haggis which has done Harrison no good in the past. But I'm told the only food he's had recently has been a bit of porridge."

Harrison has already had one verbal blast at Cook, on the phone during a conference call to publicise their fight.

Now the two men come face to face tomorrow for a media session that promises to be so explosive Harrison's manager Barry Hughes has asked promoter Frank Warren for extra security.

The contest is no longer about the nobility of boxing but the dignity of a man ridiculed by the contender for his crown.

Top sports psychologist Tom Lucas, who has worked with Celtic and the Glasgow Hawks rugby team, urged Harrison not to take the bait when the two men finally enter the same room.

Lucas said: "If I was Cook I'd be winding Harrison up as well. But from the champion's point of view the smart thing to do is turn their enmity into a cold war.

"Scott should ignore him, refuse to shake his hand and look in the opposite direction.

"Cook is probing for weaknesses and mustn't be allowed to think Harrison is going through any kind of mental turmoil."

Cook managed to turn pies, mash and jellied eels into weapons of psychological warfare at his favourite eatery in Dagenham when he said: "I know some boxers today fancy a bit of New Age nutrition but I can take platefuls of this stuff and it will do me no harm. "If it was all right for the London-based greats of the past, such as Terry Spinks, then it's all right for me."

Lucas reckons Harrison can use the difficult build-up he has had to the fight to his advantage.

He said: "Scott has gone from a Spanish jail to a form of house arrest in a Glasgow hotel while he gets himself into shape.

"He'll be suffering from a kind of claustrophobia because the hotel will seem like a well-appointed prison to him. What he will want above all at the moment is an escape valve - and that will be on offer to him on Saturday night.

"The ring is what Scott knows best and whatever is pent up inside him will come out at the weekend.

"Now is the time for controlled anger and the patience to remember the old saying about not getting mad but getting even."

But Harrison is instinctively a fighting man and in the rhyming slang of those such as Cook, born within the sound of Bow Bells, two things will happen tomorrow.

The champion will go up the apples and pears two at a time to the media conference at the Excel Arena unafraid of a bit of Barney Rubble when he gets there.

This article was posted on 6-Dec-2006, 20:56 by Hugh Barrow.