Moyne was the venue last Sunday for the County Novice Road Championships and it was great to see the Club very well represented in both races, on an ideal day for running. The Ladies 3K race saw six club athletes going to the start. The race started and after the initial charge, the Club athletes were running well with Ailish Mansfield, Anne Marie Boland and Suzanne Shine all in the chasing pack. Then with 1km to the finish there were many surges from the chasing pack with Ailish running well and as they came into the track with 300m to go she was running very well and she kept the pace going to finish 6th in 11 mins 44 secs on her debut in these Championships. She was closely followed across the finishing line by Anne Marie Boland in 7th place in 11 mins 45 secs with Suzanne Shine also improving over the final 500m to finish 8th in 11 mins 47 secs. These three athletes combined very well to win the Inter Club Silver medals, just two points off the Gold medals, fantastic running. Then we had two members making their debut for the Club in these Championships and it was brilliant to see both running so well and they were Ciara O Neill 11th in 11 mins 57 secs and Courtney McGuire 12th in 11 mins 59 secs. It is great to see Club members graduating from the Juvenile ranks and running well at Senior level. We also had Nicola Maunsell running very well when finishing 21st in 12 mins 40 secs, a major improvement on last year’s run of 13 mins 27 secs. Our 2nd team of Ciara, Courtney and Nicola were 5th Club, brilliant running all round.
These great performances by our women put a marker down for our Men and it was great to see such a response. In the Men’s race a group of nine athletes set the early pace which included Joey Feery, Anthony Bowen and the eventual winner Jimmy Boland. Then as the leading group reached the 2k mark the leading group was down to three with Jimmy flanked by the Dundrum duo of Dermot Hayes and Gareth McGlinchey. These three were still together at 5k, with Jimmy now forcing the pace and soon he opened a lead, a lead he held all the way to come home a very worthy and convincing winner in 19 mins 29 secs, brilliant performance by Jimmy and a well-deserved victory. Then we had Joey Feery also running very well when finishing 9th in 20 mins 33 secs and a major improvement on last year’s run of 21:02 with Anthony Bowen, making his debut in these Championships finishing 10th in 20 mins 39 secs. At this stage it was getting close in the team event, but we need not have feared as soon we saw two Clonmel singlets come into view and in the run to the finish Nigel O Flaherty 16th in 21 mins 29 secs edged in front of Billy Moloney 17th in 21 mins 30 secs another athlete who improved on last year’s run by 28 secs. The quartet of Jimmy, Joey, Anthony and Nigel combined to win the Inter Club title and the holders of the Danny Butler Cup for another twelve months and great credit to the squad for retaining this Cup as County Novice Men Road Champions. This is a first for the Club, to win and retain the County Novice Men’s Inter Club title for the first time under Athletic Ireland, congrats to all the athletes involved. We also had good performances from James Denn 37th in 23:44, Alan Carter 39th in 23:58, Aidan Cremin 43rd in 24:25, Vincent McHugh 52nd in 25:09, John Laste 56th in 25:34, Kenny Brett 57th in 25:34, James O Brien 60th in 25:50 and Alan O Shea 63rd in 26:05. Congrats to all our athletes who ran so well and the future looks bright.
