It`s Wednesday night at the Morton Stadium, it`s lashing rain, there`s a gale blowing, it`s freezing. All this means, of course, the first Graded Meet 2012 and the start of the track season. And so it was tonight, all of this. The conditions were simply awful. Numbers were considerably down having regard to the night that was in it. A hardy band of Clonliffe men left the huddle in the warmth of the stand to take their places on the starting line.
First off was young John Buckley running in what was for him an unfamiliar race the 800m in maybe the worst conditions of the night as the wind did it`s best to blow the field from the back straight right back to start line, young John battled away to finish around 7th in 2.21.8. In grade A Andrew Jenkinson lined up looking for a good run, however, his effort only last 200m as a foot injury cause him to pull up sharply and in some pain.
The B 3000m featured a Clonliffe quartet. Darren Reilly ran a very well judged race sitting in second place and as lap after lap the leader surged coming down the home straight with the wind at his back opening a lead at times of some 10m, Darren would always pull him back into the wind, until a lap from home when Darren surged. A winning surge it was too. Darren taking a good win, by 20m in 9:32, a good run behind him as Ernie Ramsey won the inter Clonliffe battle with Joseph Cooper, Ernie 3rd in 9:39, Joseph 4th 9:40 and Anthony Malone 9th 10:03.
Well done lads. Next graded meet will be in the Summer! May 16th in Irishtown. On the card that night will be 200m, 1500m, shot putt, discus, triple jump and what promises to be a great Dublin 10,000m championship.