Saturday saw the first race of the 2016/17 Athletics Northern Ireland Cross-Country League – the Bobby Rea Memorial, this year taking place in the picturesque Kilbroney Park in Rostrevor. Despite 8 Ulster & NI Under-Age Championship races plus the women’s race beforehand, the 8km Men’s Race took place in firm conditions over 4 laps of a 2k loop. The loop included one significant climb plus several roller-coaster rises and falls. The weather was dry too and this all made for very fast conditions.

Seamy Lynch

For Newcastle & District AC (NAC), the aim is to try and regain the League Title that they won in the 2014/15 season after finishing in 2nd place last year to Foyle Valley. The format has changed slightly with a club’s 4 best races out of the 6 before Christmas to count plus 2 more in the New Year. The scoring format is two-fold – first, a point for each runner that finishes up to a maximum of 16 and second, 12 points for the team with the lowest total of places for first 4 runners home (and 10 for 2nd, 8 for 3rd and so on).

David O’Flaherty

This year, David McNeilly resigned from his successful period as Club Cross-Country Captain and was replaced by David O’Flaherty and O’Flaherty worked hard all week to try and fill the 16 slots and the good news was that 45 minutes before the off in Rostrevor 16 souls in red & yellow were present and correct in the Park – a fantastic effort from everyone who made it to Kilbroney – in this league format it’s vital to get 16 home in each race and thanks to the effort from everyone.

Leading Group of 5 are Conor Duffy (Glaslough Harriers), Seamy Lynch, Andrew Annett (North Belfast), William McKee (Mourne Runners) & David O’Flaherty

As ever the start of the race was fast and up the longer hill for the first time a group of 6 had already pulled away including NAC’s Seamy Lynch and David O’Flaherty. As the race progressed, Irish 5000m track champion from the summer, Conor Duffy from Glaslough Harriers in County Monaghan proved just too strong for Lynch and gradually pulled away to win in 26:46 for the 8.2km distance. Lynch was 23 seconds back running strongly in 2nd with team mate David O’Flaherty next 27 seconds behind that, making up the top 3 – excellent running from the NAC men. North Belfast with Andrew Annett in 4th leading the way backed up by 5th, 9th and 18th (in the form of 50-year-old Neil Carty) won the team race with 36 points and NAC were in 2nd with 68 points. Overall though NAC are top of the league with 26 points ahead of North Down (23 points) and defending champions Foyle Valley in joint third with North Belfast on 22 points.

The second race comes quickly with the Comber Cup taking place at the Billy Neil Playing Fields next Saturday and another turnout of 16 will be vital if NAC is to have a chance of staying in top spot in the League.

In other races on the day, evergreen Jim Patterson celebrated his selection for the Masters Cross-Country International in Glasgow in November and also turning 70 by winning the M70 category over 5k. Patterson is in excellent form and covered the course in 22:01 to show a clean pair of heels to all bar 2 of everyone over 60.

In the U12 Category Ciara Savage came home in 52nd place in 6:38 out of a field of 94 finishers. In the U14 Category Eve Kenneally ran strongly to finish 11th (also out of 94) and qualify for the Irish U-14 Championships in December.

Photos Courtesy of Paul Fegan

Team Results

League Points (after race 1)

Race Results (131 finishers)