CLONLIFFE HARRIERS had a team entered in both the Under 18 Boys and the Mens National Novice Events.  Despite being minus a couple of key runners, we still managed to finish in third place both events.

  Dalgan Park in County Meath was host to this years National Novice and the Inter-County Even-age Championships. The beautiful grounds of the Columban monastery (now open as a park) had perfect conditions for racing and even the rain held off during the races. The 2000m circuit had a wide start to a bend which brought the runners down a steep hill, then around the bottom of the field beside the river, up through a number twists and a hairpin turn, before the climb up the hill to the finish. The 'going', as they say in horse-racing was soft, but the organisers had put straw in the worst places which certainly helped. In the U18 race they had to complete the circuit two and a half times, with the Novice race completing it three times. The size of the field of runners in each event (but particularly the Novice) resulted in some fairly tight finishes with positions being swopped even over the finishing uphill sprint to the line.

  In the National Novice Championship, there was a huge field taking part with 163 finishers. It was a great performance from all the lads (well done). 1st place went to Finn Valley (98pts), 2nd to Rathfarnham (104pts) and 3rd Clonliffe with 107pts.

  First home with an excellent run was William Stafford (16th), second, running for the Dublin County team, was Liam O'Halloran (27th), third was Kevin English (29th) and fourth-scoring runner was Seán McDonnell (35th), who has made fabulous progress since joining the club this year. The rest of the team were Aidan Creaner (90th), Alan Sheridan (129th) and Paul Duggan (149th). 

  In the Under 18s event, we again finished 3rd. There were 81 finishers in this event. There were great runs from Lutfi Dridi (11th), Daniel Collins (21st), Kip Daniels (23rd) and Eoin Cleary (49th). The total score was 104 points, the same as Mullingar, but we lost out on second place because of the count back rule.