The return of grass, muck and the red and yellow gazebo!

After the successful 2014/2015 cross country (XC) season for Newcastle AC that saw the red and yellow men win the Northern Ireland cross country league and grab a bronze team medal at the NI and Ulster senior championship it was hard to believe that Saturday marked the return to the grass for the new season.
Once again this year the XC season kicked off with the Comber Cup hosted by Ballydrain Harriers at the Billy Neill playing fields just outside the County Down town. The week leading up to the opener was a mixed bag of ‘yes, no, maybe and definite maybe’s’ for the reigning champions as XC team captain David McNeilly continued his outstanding work of the past two seasons by hounding and rounding up the troops to get as many Newcastle AC men to dust off their spikes and toe the line. Again this season it is so important to get big numbers from the club out as each runner from every club scores one point for completing the race (up to a maximum of 16 points) along with the first six teams scoring 12,10,8,6,4,2 points respectively (first four runners from each team to count).

With a positive start to the day in the ladies race for Newcastle AC Joanne Mills continued her recent fine form to finish second just behind North Down’s Jessica Craig. Joanne had lead for the majority of the race but with a strong last lap Jessica just managed to pass and hold of Joanne.

With a few late withdrawals from the team it was looking like it may only have been single figures but with very little time to spare the ever improving Marty Melville made a much needed appearance. Marty was swiftly followed by big Decky Rice who made it just in time to get his first taste of XC action and more importantly scoring an extra point for the team. Decky arrived with a slightly under the weather PJ ‘tape the knee’ McCrickard. Yes indeed PJ was told not to run by Newcastle AC’s self confessed ‘legend’ Deon McNeilly as he has been struggling of late with a niggling knee injury but with a bit of magic tape around the knee PJ put the team before his health and fitness and declared that he would get round the course in order to get an extra team point even if he had to crawl over the finish line and he was true to his word but thankfully no crawling was required as the tape seemed to hold his leg together for the four testing laps of the course. Seamus Lynch settled well into the race and kept with the leading group headed by eventual winner Mark McKinstrey of North Belfast Harriers the whole way and finished just outside the podium in a great fourth place. Seamy has come off a hugely successful mountain running season that finished with representing Ireland at the World Mountain Running Championship and will be challenging for top spot in the coming races without a doubt. Next for Newcastle in 10th place was David O’Flaherty who indicated that better performances will follow in the coming weeks. David battled after the race settled and moved from 17th place to 10th over the four laps to run a good steady race. Marty Melville and David McNeilly made up the four Newcastle men to score as they tussled in a hard fought group throughout and though both seemed to tire in the latter stages they hung on for a great 20th and 21st place respectively. John ‘hen’ Kelly had a good run to finish in 66th place to back up his four scoring team mates and looks to be gearing up for another important XC season. Next up for the red and yellow’s was PJ McCrickard in a gutsy 74th place and was backed up by new recruit Will Owens, 118th. Will ran a strong and controlled race, he is very quickly improving week in week out at the club sessions and is sure to be a vital asset to the team over the season. Decky ‘two watches’ Magee crossed the line next for Newcastle. Decky is known to wear two watches while running and always takes the results that has the further distance covered on the GPS. In wearing two watches Decky seemed to run twice as hard and had a great race to finish in 146th. Next in was Stevie Rice. Stevie was a regular member of the famous class of 2014/15 league champions and again has thrown his hat in to represent the team for this years cause. Stevie had a good strong finish in 163rd place and will prove again to be a vital team member. Decky Rice was not far behind to complete the scoring for the County Down men. On his xc debut Decky was slightly nervous but soon brushed off those nerves to run a good steady race and finished in 175th place to grab the last important team point.

At the end of the race its sometimes easy to tell what team has won and the commentator was quick to put his thoughts forward to say Foyle Valley looked to have won the team prize and in this case unfortunately for the Newcastle he was correct. The men regrouped at the ever present red and yellow gazebo and quickly set about having a rant, lead by chief ranter O’Flaherty, about where it ‘slipped away’ and where ‘we will improve’, dusted themselves down and set about doing a cool down. Lynch then managed to do his disappearing act when the gazebo was to be taken down and brought back to the ‘McNeillymobile’ but was later found sampling the great spread of food that was put on by the host club. Well played Seamus!

It wasn’t until later that evening when the results came out and points were added up that the Newcastle men realised they had clinched a great second place, just 5 points separated them and winners Foyle Valley, and with the 10 points for teams 10 runners added to the 10 points for second it gave them a total of 20 points for the league opener and leaves them in 4th position in the league after day one. Though Newcastle easily beat North Belfast and North Down on the day the Belfast and Bangor clubs moved above them in the league due to both teams clinching the all important 16 bonus points to add to their team points for simply having 16 runners finish the race for them. Again this shows how important every runner for their club is.

For the superstitious reader this may be a good omen for Newcastle AC as in the 2014/15 league opener at the same venue the red and yellow men were pipped for first place by North Belfast Harriers and had to settle for second but built on that and went on to make history by lifting their first ever XC league title and their first national team medal in the Senior Championship. With some of that history making team still to slot back in and the new additions along with the clubs marathon men after Dublin, Saturday’s result will surely be the foundations to build another successful season upon.

Next up is Jordanstown on 24th October where we need all maybes out to make sure we have 16 plus runners out and hopefully a ladies team as a few of our ladies had other commitments this weekend so will be good to back up Joanne.