Last Friday, 3 teams of Under 13 runners took part in the annual Tockington Manor XC relays, our last school fixture of the season.

Our A team were involved in a very exciting battle with the hosts as the lead changed hands a number of times with the rest of the schools well behind.  Oskar ran a well-judged race on leg 1 to come through in the late stages to hand over to Josh with a narrow lead.  Josh ran his usual excellent leg to extend the lead at the half way stage.  James held the same gap throughout most of his leg with Tockington runner coming back strongly in the final straight.  He passed onto Adam for the last leg with a lead of just a few seconds.  Tockington had saved their best runner until the final leg who caught Adam going up the hill just after the start.  Adam ran a strong leg, but couldn’t overhaul Tockington, but second place was a very creditable performance.  The B and C teams also acquitted themselves very well.

Indeed it was a great day for the Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools.  The U11 girls were 4th, the U13 girls and U9 boys both finished 3rd, the U9 girls matched our U13 boys with team silvers and our U11 boys won gold.

Meanwhile at Brecon on Saturday, 8 boys from Monmouth (Bailey, Adam, Josh, Alex, Rowan, Will, Marcel and Henry) represented South East Wales at the Welsh Schools Cross Country Championship in Brecon, the premier XC race of the winter calendar.  Another 7 boys from Monmouth were selected, but were unavailable to run due to other school commitments.

Our most notable performers were Adam who finished 20th in the Year 7 race and was the first South East Wales finisher, Alex who finished 16th in the Under 14 race and was the second South East Wales finisher and Rowan who finished 33rd in the Under 16 race whose South East Wales team won their category.