The Bandon Striders Men’s team found themselves once again in the final of the 1st Division in the National League which itself is a great achievement, but having been placed 3rd last year, they were not there just to make up the numbers. Late withdrawal and some walking wounded meant that Catherine Duggan was reaching for the tippex early in the day as the team had to be adjusted and not for the last time in the day.
\nEarly events saw decent points being won, Patrick McSweeney was in action early in the Hammer and placed 4th, while the first track event of the day was the 110m Hurdles where Saran Malangalashthira placed 7th and Saran placed 3rd in the Pole Vault. David McInerney bravely took on the 400m Hurdles and despite picking up an injury early in the race, he battled all the way to the line for 7th place. The 4x100m relay team of Ray Clancy, Scott Gibson, Joey Henchy and Daniel Hathaway had a great win and a much needed maximum 9 points. In a very close fought 1500m Ronan Duggan finished 4th while Thomas McCarthy finished 5th in the 3,000m SteepleChase. The 400m saw Scott Gibson powering to a great win and he nearly repeated the achievement later in the 100m where he finished 2nd. Ronan Duggan was back in action in the 800m where another good run saw him finish in 4th. Joey Henchy had a great run in the 200m where he finished 3rd while in the field events Patrick McSweeney placed 2nd in the Shot Putt and Promise Okafor was 2nd in the Long Jump and with Ben O’Donovan winning the High Jump the points started to total up nicely. Naoise O’Flaithearthaigh finished in 7th place in a tough 5km race. Promise Okafor placed 3rd in the triple Jump and Colin Kingston was 4th in the Discus, Shane Howard placed 7th in the Javelin and then in the final field event of the day Gavin Hicks was 6th in the Weight for Distance.
\nLast event of the day was 4x400m relay, once again some late changes due to injuries on the day, Daniel Hathaway got the team off to a fine start, passing the baton to over to Joey Henchy who ran a fantastic leg and then handed the baton to our 400m specialist, Scott Gibson who ran a great leg to handover to David McInerney who despite the earlier injury concerns ran a storming final leg showing guts and experience way beyond his years to hang on for a great win.
\nSo all done and dusted and points total being worked out on back of any dry piece of paper which could be found. So after a short wait, the official announcement, 3rd place. Same as last year and once again while a podium place was great there was some disappointment that it was wasn’t better. Just 9points off 1st place, on another day with less injuries it could have been different, but that’s the beauty of sport….next year…next year \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Well done everyone, you have done yourself and your club proud!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bandon Striders Men’s team found themselves once again in the final of the 1st Division in the National League which itself is a great achievement, but having been placed 3rd last year, they were not there just to make up the numbers. Late withdrawal and some walking wounded meant that Catherine Duggan was reaching …<\/p>\n