Guildford Versus Wesley

Guildford Grammar Vs Wesley at home.

The final home and away race of the season was an absolute beauty despite the loss to Wesley on their home ground. Traditionally the Wesley and Guildford teams have always had close battles on the field as well as having similar team structures in terms of trying to build depth through the team.

ROUND 7				Pace
AT WESLEY
Christchurch V Guildford 09.05.15
Place	Sch	Time	Name
1	W	0:13:51	T. BREMNER	3:23
2	G	0:14:34	B. GILLAM	3:33
3	G	0:14:37	D. WHITE	3:34
4	w	0:14:44	C.MCLAUCHLAN	3:36
5	G	0:14:51	L. STACEY	3:38
6	W	0:14:54	S. CRANSTON	3:38
7	G	0:14:54	B. ARMSTONG	3:38
8	W	0:15:04	M. HARVEY	3:40
9	G	0:15:05	C. ADAMS	3:41
10	G	0:15:19	M. NIUTTA	3:44
11	W	0:15:28	T. STEEL	3:46
12	W	0:15:33	R. ABRAHAMS	3:48
13	W	0:15:34	J. MCCUTCHON	3:48
14	W	0:15:35	D. EMMETT	3:48
15	G	0:15:41	N. ROLLO	3:50
16	W	0:15:42	R. WESTON	3:50
17	W	0:15:54	T.ROBINSON	3:53
18	W	0:16:13	K. STEEL	3:57
19	W	0:16:15	F. EMMETT	3:58
20	W	0:16:16	R. AFFINITO	3:58
21	G	0:16:19	R. ADAMS	3:59
22	W	0:16:27	G. GARNER	4:01
23	W	0:16:28	H. COOPER	4:01
24	W	0:16:36	S. MCDONALD	4:03
25	G	0:16:45	D. FLOPPA	4:05
26	G	0:16:49	H.COLLINS	4:06
27	G	0:16:58	J. SPARK	4:08
28	G	0:16:59	J. MANOLINI	4:09
29	W	0:17:01	H. BLAIR	4:09
30	G	0:17:02	A. MCLAUGHLIN	4:09
31	W	0:17:12	M. HARDING	4:12
32	W	0:17:13	T. RUPP	4:12
33	G	0:17:15	H. VANDEMWALLBAKE	4:12
34	G	0:17:44	C. MILES	4:20

In 2014 Wesley came away with a 73 point win over our boys and again, on Saturday they managed to come away with a 71 point win.  This being said, they had to earn it.

Guildford saw 6 runners making the top 10. Bailey Gillam and Declan White took out 2^nd and 3^rd both running significantly faster per kilometre than they have in previous races. Liam Stacey was on fire as he worked his way through the field early in the race to secure 5^th place and it was fantastic to see this young athlete looking comfortable and in control as his team mate Ben Armstrong, chased him down alongside the Wesley runner to finish 3 seconds behind.

Despite the closeness of the times and the competitiveness of the times, it’s the places that combine to make up the final point tally and sadly our boys top 15 places tallied higher than Wesley’s tally.

A number of our lads were caught out by the shortness of the course and left their home runs a little too late, this is a critical mistake that we won’t make again and as the coach I need to take the responsibility for this, in not carry out a better surveillance of the course beforehand.  Cameron Adams was one runner who was caught out by this and despite making up a huge amount of ground in the final stages of the race, had it been 4.5km instead of 4.km he would have easily accounted for the Wesley competitor with only 1 second separating them on the line.   

Young Rory Adams again impressed with a strong performance and moved swiftly from 29^th position through to 21^st over the final 1500m. His young team mates, Heath Collins and Jake Manolini tried to go with him however the pace was just a little too hot for these boys on the day and they settled into a solid rhythm with Dylan Foppa and Jack Spark.

Throughout the morning many of the boys really put in over the final stages and at no stage did they stop chasing the Wesley green. I think Bailey Gillam summed it up the best when he said  “ The boys really ran well today.”

This race signalled the end of the home and away fixtures , with all the teams now coming together to contest the All0schools competitions, the first being the Aquinas 3km event. This will see every school race over the same course and brings together the best of the PSA cross country competition.

The following Thursday (2^nd July) sees Guildford hosting a unique and testing relay format during the bye and we would encourage as many as possible coming down and cheering our lads on as they take on the other 6 schools.