Scotland Win SHI’s, Northern Ireland, 3/4th Oct 09
The Dominant Scottish male was much in evidence at the 2009 Senior Home Internationals, this year held in Femanagh NI on the 3rd and 4th of October. With 4 to count Scotland’s M21s took the first 4 places. With 2 to count our M20s took the first 2 places. In the relays the 3 men’s teams took 1st 2nd and 3rd places. But as we all know behind every great men’s team there is a great women’s team.
Unable to field our strongest W21s we needed the women to make sure they secured second place to a strong English team, in Saturday’s individual they did just that.
We also needed the W20s to perform well, in fact they did brilliantly to beat the English women, with the coup de grace delivered by Wales pushing England’s W20s into 3rd place. So at the end of the Individual races Scotland had scored 28 points to England’s 22, Wales scored 12 and Ireland 10.
Six points is a healthy lead but not insurmountable given a change to scoring agreed this year, which makes equal points available on both the individual and relay days.
The individual was run at The Burren, the relays at Crossmurrin. Both are limestone areas with some tricky, intricate detail; pits, depressions karst sink holes with some think vegetation to add to the challenges. In the individual there were no clean runs but those that held it together best came out on top and so it was in the relays, with the teams not running to their form on paper, placings chopped and changed.
The races started with great spectating - teams could be seen for the first 3 controls and at several points around the course. Scotland’s women took early leads though England were holding their strongest runners until the last leg. The men also lead the way to begin with. On leg 2 there was concern in the Scottish camp when England Men 1 came home in the lead - that was not the plan, we needed the win. Before long news rippled through that England’s second leg runner had missed out a control, now we were back on plan, a Scotland 1, 2, 3 was set up and dully delivered. Our Celtic Irish cousins helped the cause finishing 4th, ahead of the 2 remaining English teams. Again the women held up their end of the bargain and finished an essential 3rd and 4th to England’s expected 1st and 2nd with our 3rd team finishing 6th. With 2 out of the 3 teams counting this gave relay day scores of Scotland 26, England 24, Ireland 13 and Wales 8.
Overall Scotland won retaining the SHI trophy after victory last year in Perthshire, England were second, Ireland 3rd and Wales 4th.
Many thanks to the organising team and their helpers from Fermanagh Orienteers, particularly Raymond “Fin” Finlay and Colin Henderson who laid on a great weekend of competition good accommodation, plenty of food and good Irish hospitality, they even kept the weather largely under control. Thanks also to the Scottish team who turned out in full strength to bring home the SHI trophies once again.
Individual results
Relay Results
The Team
Oleg Chepelin
Duncan Coombs
Scott Fraser
Mark Nixon
Murray Strain
Doug Tullie
Allan Cherry
Hector Haines
Alasdair McLeod
Fiona Berrow
Hazel Dean
Sarah Dunn
Lorna Eades
Jo Stevenson
Kirsten Strain
Hollie Orr
Jessica Orr
Hazel Wright
Posted on 05th Oct 09
by Andy Kitchin -
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