Hanrahan produces performance to savour

MARK HANRAHAN (Douglas Community School) turned in another power-packed performance to win the Kit Kat Munster Schools senior boys’ cross-country title at St Augustine’s College, Dungarvan, on Saturday and it was a performance to savour.

The serene surroundings of St Augustine’s, the spiritual home of cross-country running in Munster, are always testing whether lightning fast on a dry day or tough and sticky as they were on Saturday, but the manner in which the Cork lad floated over the mud on the back straight was spectacular.

He was challenged up to half way by another outstanding Cork athlete, Jamie McCarthy (Kinsale Community School), who had several of the top UK schoolboys behind him when he finished third in the Reebok international in Cardiff a couple of weeks earlier. He clung to his rival’s shoulder up to that point but when he took the lead on the top turn Hanrahan surged clear again and went on to stamp his authority with ever stride.