Kevin Dooney Leads Men To All-Ireland Title

Kevin Dooney landed national senior cross country silver as he steered Raheny Shamrock to a second All-Ireland Cross Country title.

Paul Pollock won the national cross country championship finishing just seven seconds ahead of Kevin Dooney who battled hard to hold off Balina’s Hugh Armstrong for silver.

Conor Dooney fought through the tough underfoot conditions to take ninth place overall with Eoin Strutt coming home in 13th position.

Strutt’s final place saw take silver in the men’s under 23 competition while Mark Kirwan came home in 18th place to give the senior men’s team 42 points.

Some 40 seconds later Kilkenny City Harriers fourth man cross the line giving the Kilkenny outfit 69 points and officially confirming Raheny Shamrock as All-Ireland Cross Country Champions!

Not to be forgotten some four places ahead of Kilkeny’s fourth man was Raheny’s fifth man with Cillian O’Leary coming home in a very strong 31st place.

Other strong finishers for the “Shamrocks” saw Kevin Moriarty took 53rd, Brian Leahy 72nd and Donal Foley 89th Joseph O’Donoghoue 96th, Des Kennedy 102nd and Michael McMahon 106th.

For the record Dundrum South Dublin took bronze with 78 points while the Raheny Shamrock B team took 12th place in the team competition.

All that was left was the club trophy presentation.

 

While Kevin Dooney, Conor Dooney, Eoin Strutt and Mark Kirwan were members of the wining Dublin team.

This may be significant, as under Raheny Shamrock proposal’s the Inter-county race in this competition may be retired from 2018.

Brian Fay landed silver in the junior race after a titanic struggle with North Down’s Craig McMeechan. Fay’s place atomically qualifies him for the European Cross Country championship in two week’s time.

The junior team was completed with David Brophy 43rd, Andrew Hyland 99nd and young Dylan Evendan 187th.

The Women’s senior continued their progress finishing sixth in the team championship having been led home by Zoe Quinn in 37th place with Karen Crossan 40th, Fiona Stack 47th and Orla Manley 52nd.

Laura Brennan ran strong to finish 63rd overall in a championship won by Cork club Leevale.

The junior women’s team were led home by Niamh Corry in 20th place followed two places later by Ailish Murtagh with Lucy Barrett 53rd and Aoibhinn McGoldrick 61st.

The full club results are still yet to be confirmed by Athletics Ireland.

In the under 16 boys race Sean Barrett finished 24th followed by Adam Condon 48th, Sean Flynn 70th and Ren Runswick 103rd.

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