Conall McClean claimed a fabulous victory at the Brother Ireland Clonliffe schools cross country in Dublin on Wednesday 11th October. Conall lead his senior team to victory and, backed up be fine second places by the Inter (Yr11 & 12) and Junior (yr10) teams, St. Malachy’s claimed the best overall school title (Winning the Lar Byrne Trophy and a piece of Brother office equipment).
The final race of the day was well worth the wait and the journey south. The senior boys 4500m race covered three laps of Santry demesne. An early breakaway group of seven or eight was soon whittled down to three, then two and on the sprint for the line St. Malachy’s Conall McClean proved fastest just clipping Efran Gidey in 2nd place and Eoin O’Dwyer (Belvedere) 3rd. St. Malachy’s won the team race on 40 points from St. Aidan’s on 80 and Belvedere on 87. Conall was well backed up by Cormac O’Rourke in 8th, Conall Browne in 14th and Thomas Reid in 17th. Incidentally this was Conall’s second win in 5 days, having claimed victory in the U17 race at the NI relay Championships on Saturday.
Daniel McComiskey put in a fine performance in the Inter boys, finishing in 6th place while racing with boys a year older. Adam Ferris was happy to claim a top 10 spot so soon after returning from a cycling accident that resulted in a split knee and a few weeks with no running. The rest of the team packed well with five more Malachians crossing the line between 17th and 22nd.
Matthew Lavery continued his fantastic improvements with an excellent 2nd place in the Junior boys race, with Luke Kelly in 6th and Anthony McGarrigle in 9th also claiming top 10 spots. The best of the Minor boys (Yr9) was Luke Ferris in 12th.
Both Aaron Lynch and Danaan Strong performed superbly in the year 8 race, Aaron claimed 5th, with Danaan close behind in 7th. Aaron was pleased to reverse the order from last weeks Martin McMullan race where he finished 2nd to Danaan.
The new athletics gazebo (kindly provided by Friends of St. Malachy’s) made its debut outing and it was well received, especially during the heavy rain showers in the middle of the day.