Finn Valley Clean Sweep in Cross Country

Finn Valley ac set an early season target of achieving a novice, masters and senior clean sweep in addition to best juvenile club in their county pre Christmas programme. The marker had been set and indeed it was always going to come down to the wire the senior men's outcome going to be the toughie and that it was as we will learn . The history of county championship cross country goes back to what was Holy Cross, Falcarragh in 1971 where Neil Mc Daid led Cranford to victory in men's and in women's it was a case of Lily Quinn leading Lifford to success. In the years that were to follow Valley completely dominated the women's section with various combinations and to an extent they historically ruled the roost in the men's division but in recent years Letterkenny had won through. So the scene was set an 11am start at Edenmore, Ballybofey conditions were going to be tough due to overnight rain but the show goes on regardless such is the nature of this sport.

The women's 5k had 6 athletes in a breakaway before Teresa Mc Gloin took control. Teresa currently running well and bound for Moll, Belgium this weekend to run as part of an Irish squad Headed for victory her second as she was champion in 2007 her time 19.52 against that of Karen Crossan, Inishowen, 20.14 with Catriona Devine just 4 secs back in third. Catriona a former champion also back having her first serious run since the birth of her baby should be happy and encouraged by her impact on the day. The team story was completed by Kay Byrne 5,and Cliodhna Dunne. One other aspect of the team story was the large contingent of Valley women that turned out. Team scores Finn Valley 17pts to Inishowen 32 pts .

The men's race was now underway 10k a lot of water on the course so in these circumstances it was always going to be about who wanted the team victory the most as on paper they looked evenly matched. The early lead group consisted of Pauric Mc Kinney , Ian Ward the defending champion and Ciaran Doherty .Nothing in it at this stage to halfway the team battle too close to call when at this point Pauric Mc Kinney who had previously won the title 4 times put his foot on the pedal and his strength in these conditions were to prove the key as he piled it on to win . Ian had gone back to 3rd and we were going into the last lap 1 point between the teams. Now who wanted the title? Well within Ian in 3rd , Darren Mc Glinchey 5th the Castlefin man was giving a good account of himself , James Mc Mahon the Irish masters international 8th , all attention turned to Shane Bonner who clawed his way up to join team mates Kieran Carlin and Kevin Holian and the 4th runner in the group was Letterkenny's Brian Thursby Phelan the crowd closing in ,it was going to be won or lost in ths group and yes the Valley lads may have been out on their ear but the job had to be completed and the 3 of them finally outran Brian to score 9, Shane a really courageous run ,10 ,Kieran the team captain who had worked steadily into this position and finally Kevin Holian the champion from 2006 in Killybegs 11,next up was Dominic Bonner a victim of flu on this day . Task completed team photo taken time to get out of there and plan the next target add in James Mc Intyre and James Flanagan unavailable on this outing and life looks good. So over to team leader Mark Connolly and his captain Kieran.

Finally a word of thanks to Pauline and Tony Quinn for use of fields and to Niall and his team of Noel Laverty, Sean Foley and Neil martin in setting up what is an excellent course. Certainly the next big challenge in the Finn Valley area is the Ulster masters, junior and intermediate cross-early January. Best wishes to Ian Ward and Teresa in Moll this weekend.

Results.

Results.

Pictures.

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