ESB League, Round 2 (Santry)

North Down men go into the final of the ESB League in 2nd place In the Mens Premier Division, behind Leevale but coming ahead of Menapians on a tie break, both clubs who have only competed in the Cork pools. They again narrowly topped the points table at Santry with 107 points followed by Clonliffe 105, Raheny 103, Crusaders 92, Meath 85, DSD 75, Abbey 64.  In a highly competitive Womens Division 1 pool at Santry Ballymena were 106, Meath 100, Derry 95, North Down 93, Clonliffe 83, and Raheny 79 with North Down going to the final in 7th place in the composite table.

Composite tables.

[Not a valid template]Both teams found the Round 2 match in Santry the most competive in the last few years. The men just managed to win the Santry round but only by a couple of points and the women did well to finish 4th. With only 8 athletes to cover the minimum 15 events, they had no room to manoevre. Highlights were seasons bests for Jordan Neil at 1500m and Hannah Lewis at long jump with other wins going to Michael Dyer, Jeremy Harper, Brendan McConville, Amy Foster, Kim Shaw and the two girls relays

[Not a valid template][Not a valid template]There was a great middle distance double from Jordan at 1500m in 3:58.4 and Michael at 800m in 1:53.5. Jeremy had a good double and this time won javelin with 51.71m as well as discus with 48.37m. Brendan had taken a knock in Manchester the previous day and aggravated  it at Santry and though he won the vault with 4.60m and took a few putts in the shot, he played no further part. Seconds came from Tom Reynolds in the 110m hurdles, Peter Glass at high jump and Robin Brown who took over a minute off his 3000m walk pb. There was also a second for the 4  400m team of Michael, Tom, James Niblock and John Saulters. The sprint relay team of Phil Browne, Tom, John and Stuart Brown did not recover from a bad first changeover.