East Down’s finest star at cross country event

2 March 2016

EAST Down AC’s senior and junior runners were in action in the final Cross Country League fixture of the 2015/16 season at Stormont on Saturday.

It proved a traumatic and painful experience for Newcastle’s David O’ Flaherty when a collision with an oncoming runner from Willowfield ended his race as he was consolidating his lead at the beginning of the second of three laps.

This left Foyle Valley’s Chris McGuinnes clear ahead of North Down’s Dennis Scott and Newcastle’s David Simpson.

The race turned into a tremendous contest with Scott overhauling McGuinness before the start of the final lap and holding on well from the fast finishing Simpson, who snatched the runners-up spot from McGuinness in the last few hundred metres.

Doubtless O’ Flaherty would have won and helped his club to maximum team points, which instead went to big rivals Foyle Valley, but he’ll lick his wounds and be back next year

There were good East Down performances all round with team captain Paul Burns leading the way ahead of Dee Murray and Mark O’Connor with Davy Foster close behind.

Stephen Cassidy had probably his best run of the season, looking strong throughout and enjoying himself all the way to the finish line. Ian McCracken slotted in towards the rear and was the important sixth man to gain another valuable scoring point.

Tom Dowey kept the East Down colours flying in the Male Master over 60s race, posting 24.40 for the 3.6 miles, and thus covering up for a certain other over 60 whose excuse of “forgotten my spikes” is currently being investigated by the (Bog) Standards committee.

Once again the ladies shone brightly in the variable underfoot conditions on offer on Saturday and while only fielding three runners — Laura Gardiner, Alison Gilliland and Alison Carroll — they nevertheless punched well above their weight.

Laura’s ninth place was evidence of an improving stamina base after initially looking as if she had started to quickly while Alison G has proved a revelation all season, going from strength to strength, and 16th position on Saturday was a really top quality performance.

Alison C as ever proved the lynchpin in the squad and maintained her season long form to take 61st place in a field of 140 runners. Well done ladies. Roll on next season?

As so often in the past it was the junior squad which effectively brought home the bacon on Saturday.

The primary school girls race saw almost 150 children take to the start line and at the other end it was Kirsty Foster who emerged from the trees in second place and only just failed to snatch first place form Armagh AC’s Ella Haynes. Not far behind came Anna Gardiner in seventh place and Kirsty’s sister Lucy in 12th.

All taken together their performances were more than enough to win the Primary Girls Cup beating Armagh AC by four points. Well done girls.

Mackenzie Murray was 10th out of 125 runners in the primary boys race and Edie Carroll ran sensibly to secure third place in the U-15 girls race. More importantly, and possibly preoccupied by upcoming exams, she had no re-occurrence of the stitch problems of recent races.

In the U-17 girls race Aoife Cochrane ran beautifully to take third place and Laura Green showed signs of a return to form with a well-worked seventh place, just one ahead of Ella Carroll.

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