Brilliant U17 bronze medal for St. Michael’s

On a course around the beautifully appointed Clongowes Wood College in Kildare that resembled a billiard table, with not a fleck of mud or a small incline in sight, these All-Ireland championships were a track athlete’s dream and the local boys did well to be on the podium, in what is, by common consent, always the most competitive and difficult to win age group in Irish schools cross-country.

The St Michael’s lads packed well on Saturday with Jacob Britton, Paul Breen and Jack Scallon 25th, 26th and 28th respectively and indeed Domhnall Lynam who was the fourth counter, Bruce Worley and James Boyle all finished in the top 50 with Connor McNally and Ryan Flanagan just outside, but again, as in 2010 and 2011 they just lack the one or two athletes in the top fifteen positions individually which would have dropped their team score by the 20-30 points required to win Irish schools gold.

The gold and silver medals went to St Flannan’s of Ennis and St Mary’s Mullingar, two teams who are essentially club sides running in their school colours.

St Flanna’s team are all members of the Ennis Track Club, All-Ireland U16 and junior (U19) club champions, while most of the St Mary’s team run with Mullingar Harriers who have been the dominant club in Irish under age boys’ cross-country on many occasions this century and for most of them athletics would be their only or at least their primary sport.

St Michael’s have to work hard to overcome the lack of underage club structures and facilities locally and most of the St Michael’s team do well to balance their running with the demands of either Gaelic football or the Association code or in many cases both.

St Aidan’s CBS Dublin, who were third at Junior (U15) level two years ago and who are largely made up of athletes from the famous Dublin club Clonliffe Harriers, finished fourth on Saturday and the junior silver medallists from 2013 Knockbeg College were back in seventh so relatively speaking St Michael’s fared best of the 2013 junior medallists.

However. it is unlikely that a school like St Michael’s will ever be in a position to win an Irish schools title at Intermediate or senior level as the schools championships are increasingly a mirror image of the work being done in athletic clubs in particular areas rather than in schools and are won by teams of young men for whom athletics is their major focus.

There was a good performance in the Inter girls from Mount Lourdes athlete and Enniskillen Running club athletes Edel Monaghan, the Ulster U17 champion and Ulster schools silver medallist who 16th position in a top class field dominated by athletes from south of the border.

St Michael’s senior team finished in a very creditable 8th position, having taken third place in the Ulster championships and indeed they were led home by Oisin Morris who had moved up from the Intermediate age group and, perhaps with a point to prove, became the second intermediate athlete after Gerard Britton in 2007 to lead home a St Michael’s team at an All-Ireland schools cross-country.

As noted after the provincial finals this bunch of athletes may well end up producing more athletes who go on to compete into adulthood than some teams who won more trophies at schools level so we can hopefully look out for names like Mark McCaffrey, Ryan Gormley, Conal Boylan, Pierce Connolly or Eddie Boyd on results sheets on the road or over the country in the years ahead.

On a wider point Irish athletics needs to look at the whole structure of its cross-country season as surely the schools should be where talent is identified and then directed on to the clubs to be nurtured and developed rather than the current season, where the club championships precede the schools, which then are a rerun of what went before, and the whole schools season in both cross-country and track and field is predicated on the demands of the elite few who will compete in the international SIAB championships each March and July rather than the promotion of the sport for participation and athlete development.

Just because a system runs efficiently with well attended championships does not necessarily mean it is serving its obligations to the sport or the health of society well and the fact that things have been done in a certain way or at a certain time for many years does not mean they should not be open to review and analysis.

For St Michael’s a ninth Irish school medal in the years since their first in 2006 is a positive end to a period where they have twice won All-Ireland titles in 2009 and 2013, both at junior level, in addition to silver in the junior age group in 2008 and a remarkable six sets of Irish bronze medals, junior 2006 and 2010, intermediate in 2010, 2011 and 2015 and senior in 2010, the remarkable season where they achieved Irish medals in every age group. Despite Fermanagh being a non-traditional athletics area, St Michael’s has developed a good tradition of success in cross-country and hopefully the structures are in place to ensure this continues and indeed starts to feed into senior athletics in the way former St Michael’s athlete like Mark Hoy, Conal Mahon and Ciaran Dolan have done in recent years St Michael’s brought the curtain down on a long and challenging cross country season and indeed a decade of provincial and national success with a bronze medal in the Intermediate (U17) boys All-Ireland schools cross-country final last Saturday.

On a course around the beautifully appointed Clongowes Wood College in Kildare that resembled a billiard table, with not a fleck of mud or a small incline in sight, these All-Ireland championships were a track athlete’s dream and the local boys did well to be on the podium, in what is, by common consent, always the most competitive and difficult to win age group in Irish schools cross-country.

The St Michael’s lads packed well on Saturday with Jacob Britton, Paul Breen and Jack Scallon 25th, 26th and 28th respectively and indeed Domhnall Lynam who was the fourth counter, Bruce Worley and James Boyle all finished in the top 50 with Connor McNally and Ryan Flanagan just outside, but again, as in 2010 and 2011 they just lack the one or two athletes in the top fifteen positions individually which would have dropped their team score by the 20-30 points required to win Irish schools gold.

The gold and silver medals went to St Flannan’s of Ennis and St Mary’s Mullingar, two teams who are essentially club sides running in their school colours.

St Flanna’s team are all members of the Ennis Track Club, All-Ireland U16 and junior (U19) club champions, while most of the St Mary’s team run with Mullingar Harriers who have been the dominant club in Irish under age boys’ cross-country on many occasions this century and for most of them athletics would be their only or at least their primary sport.

St Michael’s have to work hard to overcome the lack of underage club structures and facilities locally and most of the St Michael’s team do well to balance their running with the demands of either Gaelic football or the Association code or in many cases both.

St Aidan’s CBS Dublin, who were third at Junior (U15) level two years ago and who are largely made up of athletes from the famous Dublin club Clonliffe Harriers, finished fourth on Saturday and the junior silver medallists from 2013 Knockbeg College were back in seventh so relatively speaking St Michael’s fared best of the 2013 junior medallists.

However. it is unlikely that a school like St Michael’s will ever be in a position to win an Irish schools title at Intermediate or senior level as the schools championships are increasingly a mirror image of the work being done in athletic clubs in particular areas rather than in schools and are won by teams of young men for whom athletics is their major focus.

There was a good performance in the Inter girls from Mount Lourdes athlete and Enniskillen Running club athletes Edel Monaghan, the Ulster U17 champion and Ulster schools silver medallist who 16th position in a top class field dominated by athletes from south of the border.

St Michael’s senior team finished in a very creditable 8th position, having taken third place in the Ulster championships and indeed they were led home by Oisin Morris who had moved up from the Intermediate age group and, perhaps with a point to prove, became the second intermediate athlete after Gerard Britton in 2007 to lead home a St Michael’s team at an All-Ireland schools cross-country.

As noted after the provincial finals this bunch of athletes may well end up producing more athletes who go on to compete into adulthood than some teams who won more trophies at schools level so we can hopefully look out for names like Mark McCaffrey, Ryan Gormley, Conal Boylan, Pierce Connolly or Eddie Boyd on results sheets on the road or over the country in the years ahead.

On a wider point Irish athletics needs to look at the whole structure of its cross-country season as surely the schools should be where talent is identified and then directed on to the clubs to be nurtured and developed rather than the current season, where the club championships precede the schools, which then are a rerun of what went before, and the whole schools season in both cross-country and track and field is predicated on the demands of the elite few who will compete in the international SIAB championships each March and July rather than the promotion of the sport for participation and athlete development.

Just because a system runs efficiently with well attended championships does not necessarily mean it is serving its obligations to the sport or the health of society well and the fact that things have been done in a certain way or at a certain time for many years does not mean they should not be open to review and analysis.

For St Michael’s a ninth Irish school medal in the years since their first in 2006 is a positive end to a period where they have twice won All-Ireland titles in 2009 and 2013, both at junior level, in addition to silver in the junior age group in 2008 and a remarkable six sets of Irish bronze medals, junior 2006 and 2010, intermediate in 2010, 2011 and 2015 and senior in 2010, the remarkable season where they achieved Irish medals in every age group. Despite Fermanagh being a non-traditional athletics area, St Michael’s has developed a good tradition of success in cross-country and hopefully the structures are in place to ensure this continues and indeed starts to feed into senior athletics in the way former St Michael’s athlete like Mark Hoy, Conal Mahon and Ciaran Dolan have done in recent years