MARK CASSIDY was little more than an interested spectator when he stood alongside his mother in Drogheda to watch his father, Philip, don the coveted race leader’s yellow jersey at the end of the penultimate stage of the 1999 FBD Insurance Rás.

CIARÁN POWER (Pezula Racing) may have been dumped on the scrapheap when the Sports Council were handing out their grants to elite sports people, but he was at the top of the pile yesterday evening when he won the opening stage of the Pauline Sugrue Auctioneers Rás Mumhan into Killorglin.