Cross Country Report
Saturday 3 May 2025
Waverley College and St Aloysius’ College Invitation, Upjohn Park, Rydalmere
The 2025 Season competition got underway with Waverley and St Aloysius’ hosting the GPS and CAS Cross Country fraternity last Saturday at Upjohn Park Rydalmere. The course was in great shape despite the recent rain, and some fine performances were recorded by the boys from Blue Street. Our strength looks to be in the Junior and Intermediate age groups where, if we target them and play our cards right, we are in with a shot at the season ending titles. It would be a stretch to say we are in the hunt in the Opens, though I’m certain as the season unfolds, we can remain in touch with those teams ahead of us currently, hopefully putting some pressure on them come season’s end. It would be great to be on a step of the podium in each division as we were last year again, though it currently looks like a tough ask!
The Juniors led the teams out on course in a fast start at 9am. George Harvey, pragmatically (no surprise he is thinking about his racing as he left training on Thursday with a Dostoevsky tome tucked under his arm; he is in Year 8… anyway, I digress…), decided he was going to ‘get out’ more quickly this year, and it paid dividends as it took sometime before Henry Grieve and Zac Robertson closed the gap on him, passing him, to be 16th and 20th (7th and 11th GPS) at race end with George only one spot adrift in 22nd (12th). Jackson Harris is super keen this year and ran well, and will no doubt improve throughout the season, as he was 38th (21st). He completed our Junior Team on the day, with the boys placing a commendable 2nd in the team’s event. Alex Baxter also ran well to be a tidy 47th (25th) on debut! Though, he does waste a bit of energy smiling to his fans as he passes…
Our Intermediates soon followed, a little depleted as we had stolen a couple of their teammates for the Opens… James Warren, Toby Ward and Ben Frantz ran superbly for the first run of the season, all finishing inside the Top Twenty (Top Ten GPS!). Nice! They finished 12th, 13th and 18th (4th, 5th, 6th) respectively! Digby Wood shouldered the burden of carrying the team result, which he did in fine fashion, as he finished a tenacious 41st (22nd), anchoring the Team to a solid 2nd place. I was impressed by Hugo Pope, to whom I had suggested doing some training over the holidays. Truthfully, he said he hadn’t, yet he had a real crack and finished a pleasing 57th (32nd) on debut. I’ve no doubt he can get down into the 20s by season’s end with some training and race smarts.
The Opens looked solid on paper, and several of us thought we would be there this year with our team. However, none of the Shore Cross Country aficionados predicted the depth of the competition. Scots put their hand up as the team to beat with an emphatic win in the Team Event on the day last Saturday and skipped away to a solid lead in the season-long cumulative competition. Ended up 6th, some distance back, but we do believe we can work our way into the top three regularly. Thomas Gray got away to a flyer, yet Captain James Bestic’s diesel engine kicked in over the four laps to eventually close the gap and passed him to lead his team home as he was 20th (15th), so I had thought, I later found out James passed Tom as he was vomiting in the bushes, yuk… Tom hung on well to be only three positions adrift in 23rd (18th). As mentioned, we moved Jonty Jagger and Hugo Stewart up in an effort to bolster our Open Team. The 8km seemed to suit Jonty a tad more as he finished a commendable 33rd (27th). He and Hugo were together for much of the race, though Hugo faded toward the end to finish 58th (43rd). We were also buoyed to see Fraser Pandit back on the horse after a couple of seasons beset with injury niggles. We’ve no doubt he will steadily improve throughout the season as his competitive juices start flowing. A big shout out too to Malachi Warner, who joined us for the first time. He has been running a godly number of kilometres each week as he trains to run from Brisbane to Sydney later in the year. I recently became aware of this, and of course, it was only natural that I pestered him to join us. Looking at some of the stats from his training sessions, he should start working his way toward the pointy end of the race with more race experience. We do love that Archie Watson remains a committed Shore Cross Country athlete. He ended up trotting around the 8km with the Opens lads after missing the start of the Inters as he raced to Rydalmere following his Football game!
So, we finished our first week of competition with a 2nd, 2nd and 6th in the Team’s events. Nothing to be ashamed of, but certainly something to try and improve upon moving forward. Moving forward – I sound like a Rugby League Coach…
Shore Cross Country Machine of the Week: The Cross Country staff were unanimous in suggesting James Warren as our ‘Machine’ following his run in the Intermediates last Saturday! I certainly wasn’t going to argue!
Congrats to the Shore lads and staff who ran in the Half Marathon last Sunday. I’ve heard quite a few good results, none more so than Thomas Gray, who completed the course in under 1hr 22mins! That’s sub 4min/km pace! Nice!
We are off to King’s tomorrow! It will be tough, as always, out West!
Good running,
Mr Michael Spratt
MIC Cross Country
