If You Don’t Mind Umpire

By Brian Marantelli 24 June 2014

The Victorian Cross Country League conducted their fifth annual club relay on Sunday at Norton’s Park in Wantirna South. Eleven teams fronted the starter with awards for the first three teams on handicap as well as three teams on times. The teams consisted of five runners, each to run two laps totalling 3000 metres for each runner. The fastest team, following on from last season, was the AFL umpires who led all the way and had a seventy three second margin over their nearest competitors, the team led by David Spence. Third across the line was Team Page, a minute and a half from the second placegetters. The winning team consisted of Michael Marantelli, Adam Coote, Ian Burrows, Damien Cusack and Matthew Jenkinson. The fastest time overall went to Marantelli (9:32) with the rest of his team showing great consistency with only seventeen seconds between them. Phillip O’Brien (10:04) and David Spence (9:53) were others to speed around the fifteen hundred metre circuit. Winning team captain, Michael Marantelli attributed the win to the fine managerial skills of the wily tactician Shane “toecutter” Thiele. Shane, forced to cut his team from a huge list of candidates, went with a team which would adhere to his strict non socialising after match day policy. The team captain, showing his customary leadership, made sure that his men were tucked in before race nine at Ascot.

The handicap honours went to Team Davis who had eleven seconds to spare over Team Hipworth and a further thirteen seconds to Team Moran. Team Davis, as always capably led by Colin Davis, consisted of many runners new to the VCCL and all showed a win in the regular racing is close at hand. Fastest competitor for the winning handicap team was new member Robert Eppinger with a solid run of 10:38.

Looking at the race as if it was an individual handicap event the winner would have been Daniel Veith with a three second margin over Mark Andrews and then one second breaks to Wayne James and Andrew Lane. The sealed handicap claimed another victim with the marked improvement shown by Tony Rendina to finish fifth in handicap order.

Runners please note that the $1000 draw ticket will be available from this Sunday. Hopefully all members will get behind our major fund raiser and buy a few tickets, $10 each.

This Sunday we venture back to Woodlands for the 21^st Independent Signs 10km, 10am start.

The following week we welcome a new sponsor on board with David Page’s company Austbrokers Phillips conducting the 8km event at Lysterfield Park. We hope that the club can have a great turn out for this new event.

Related

Relay Team Results courtesy of Mark O’Brien.
Relay Photos courtesy of Leanne Baxter.

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