Katie Taylor's visibility this week has been no more than eight minutes on Monday. It was a sort of flare up, a burn for four rounds and then she disappeared into the bowels of the stadium, her opponent Switzerland's Sandra Brugger feeling at best staggered.

From today she is on stage again for what she hopes is a longer run into the weekend. A place in Saturday's final in Bucharest is hers to lose. Of that the Olympic lightweight champion is certain.

Performance is the key for Taylor. She is the best boxer at this tournament and while Russia's Sofya Ochigava on the other side of the draw may dispute that, most would say there is no doubt. But better boxers have been beaten every day in these European Championships and with medals now at stake in the quarter-finals, desperation will creep in.

Yesterday Taylor was training, shedding some ounces to be sure of the weight before meeting Lavinia Mera today. Local girl; noisy crowd. It’s what dreams are made of for Mera. But Taylor’s thinking is less emotional and more coldly pragmatic to allow such events to hold influence.

“I don’t know who I’m going in against,” she said after her first win. “I’ll work it out. My dad will look at the video afterwards and he’ll give me the tactics. Dad has the video so he can look at all the fights.

“We do it all the time. We have to be prepared for every fight, look at all the analysis. But my dad does all that really. I don’t really like to look at my opponents.”

Much less nonchalance than holding faith with the way her system works, Taylor faces a 19-year-old, who is just a year out of the junior ranks. Theoretically it’s a miss-match and while her father Pete can see the pitfalls, he has six European Championship successes, four worlds and an Olympic Games from which to draw.

Mera has already acknowledged Taylor’s soaring status in the sport and that there is no better boxer in the 60kg weight division but she also believes that one of the attractions of boxing is about introducing doubt to certainty.

"Katie Taylor is better than me now," said Mera after she qualified. "But we will fight and we will see after if she is still better than me."

The one-time Mitchelstown resident is an admirer of Taylor but her affections are not to be confused with debilitating sentiment. So, too, will Taylor’s sweet nature and apparent fragility outside of the ring be replaced with calculating savagery and total exploitation of what she and her father will identify as the teenager’s weakness. Her age and her experience are the two most obvious against a multiple champion, who will be 28 years old in July.

“The way Katie sees it is that it’s just anther opponent for her,” said Pete. “It makes no difference at European Championships. I’d say the Romanian might also be a little bit intimidated as well. But she’s going to have the backing of the crowd here.

‘Olympic champion’

“I think she (Mera) did well in the juniors, a medal in the World Youths. I mean look . . . everyone that boxes against Katie knows she’s the Olympic champion in the same way as every one boxing against

Nicola Adams

knows that she’s the Olympic champion. I think they would be a little bit intimidated by that.”

It has been an encouraging week for the Irish team with Clare Grace already through to a semi-final on Friday against English footballer-turned-boxer Stacey Copeland and two others, Joanne Lambe and Micheala Walsh, through to today's quarter-finals, along with Taylor. So, too, do they understand that the work is just beginning. Medals for the team, the title for Taylor and something of a spring board towards the World Championships later this year is in the thinking. They know, as well, that the Rio Olympics will gallop towards them once the football is finished. But first Mera.

“Our plan is to get off to a quick start, catch the eye of the judges and just put our stamp on it and maybe silence the crowd a little bit too,” said Pete.

“But the Romanians, they’re all good friends of Katie. It’s going to be interesting to see what the atmosphere will be like. But Katie’s loves boxing the home nation. Everywhere she’s gone she’s had to do that at some stage.

“She had to box Natasha Jonas in London and in China she boxed Cheng Dong. I think everywhere she has been she has ended up boxing against the home favourite at some stage.

“She relishes that and she’s just looking forward to getting back in the ring. She’s been training today to make weight. But she’ll be grand.”

She has been for the last nine years.