Formidable test for Scullion and Treacy

STEPHEN SCULLION (Wellington College) and Sarah Treacy (King’s Hospital), the newly crowned national junior cross-country champions, bid for more success in the Kit Kat All-Ireland Schools Championships at St Clare’s Sports Ground, DCU, this afternoon.

Scullion will face a difficult task against David McCarthy (St. Augustine’s, Dungarvan) who was in tremendous form at the Munster schools championships.

That race came in the middle of a memorable indoor season. The week before he had outsprinted Ciaran Ó Lionaird in a 1,500m race, in Cardiff, and he had caught the Corkman on the line for second place behind James Nolan in the 1,500m at the national indoor championships, in Belfast.

Scullion led all the way to win the junior title in Santry last week and he will need to assert himself early again if he is to hold off McCarthy’s powerful finish.

Eoin Healy (Clonkeen College) and Alan Stenson (Mullingar CBS), third and fourth at the weekend, are others who could figure. Treacy will take on her track rivals when she lines up against Laura Huet (Institute of Education) and Joanne English (Loreto, Letterkenny), while Karen English (St. Paul’s, Waterford), the Munster champion, and Joyce Curtin (Colaiste Eoin, Youghal), who is bound for the US this year, will not be far away. Ryan Faulkner (St. Malachy’s), Conor Dooney (CBS Monkstown) and Munster champion, Craig Murphy (Douglas CS) will battle it out for the intermediate boys’ title, while it will take a huge performance from someone to deprive Ciara Cronin (Abbey CC, Waterford).