Tallaght Juveniles Stride on in X.C. League Series
By Cecil Johnston

In the third meet of the Dublin Juvenile Cross Country League series at Santry last Sunday, our juveniles secured a number of individual wins and team awards, with many striding on up the league tables in their hunt for league trophies.

In the girls U10 division, Jade Johnston, silver medalist in the Dublin Championships the previous week, made it two league wins out of two, when striding clear in the 600m event, ahead of the Dublin Champion, Bronwyn Keogh from Fingallians. Emma Reid, Angela Prior and Megan Delaney followed Jade home for the club.

The U11 boys 800m event brought more success for the club, when Dylan Murphy in his first league contest, crossed the line in third place, leading Adam Prior (12th), Killian Morris (13th) and Jason to team gold medals. 

Alanna Hutchinson, our sole competitor in the U12 division, showed improved form with a very strong finish in the 1,000m contest, whilst in the girls U13 1,000m, Annmarie Mc Clean, Robyn Reece and Emma Prior took bronze team honours, when packing well in 12th, 13th and 14th places, respectively.

Christopher Delaney moved up the U13 league table when finishing 6th in the 1200m event and Roisin O’ Hanlon moved into 2nd in the U14 division with another strong performance when taking 3rd in her 1200m event.

At U15 level, Aisling Johnston stays clear at the top after she made it three wins from three, when she led the field from start to finish in her 1500m contest, with Rebecca Game going third in the table, with her third placed finish. In the boys division, Leigh Bolger went top of the table after his third placing in the 2k event and led Eoghan Hennessey (5th), Niall Forrester (6th) and Stewart Kelly (7th), to Tallaghts second team gold of the day.

The girls U16 2k contest included Aoibheann Tierney and Carla Fullam, and both stayed in the hunt for league honours when finishing 5th and 8th respectively. The last juvenile event of the day, the boys U16 3k contest provided one of the closest finishes of the day, with Tallaghts Peter Fitzsimons running powerfully throughout the race, crossing the line in 4th, only a few metres off the winner.

Later at the same venue, our senior athletes were next into the fray when they contested the Dublin Senior Championships. Proudly sporting the clubs new style singlets, they battled bravely against large numbers of competitors, unfortunately without medal success.

Laura Mc Donnell was the clubs flag bearer in the ladies 5k event, and despite running well to the fore throughout the 5k contest, she had to settle for 19th, missing out by four places, to make the Dublin panel for the National Championships. In the mens 10k contest, Nilton Demorez ran very strongly in his first senior championship to cross the finishing line first for Tallaght. He was followed home by fellow debutante Ronan Kearns, with Keith Sherlock a few places behind, and Bill Murphy, Alan Lawlor and Colm Barcoe next.

Next competition for our athletes will be the National Juvenile uneven age Cross Country Championships in Sligo on Sunday 27th November, where we will have 15 athletes representing Dublin, with our U13 girls, U15 girls and U17 boys teams representing the club in the Inter Clubs category on the day.