Scotland by a Whisker
A remarkable finish to the Senior Home International relays in Northern Ireland saw Scotland take the honours, by the narrowest of margins, to square the Home International series with one event still to come.
Although Matthew Gooch won the M21 race for the Scots, England tagged the next three places and won the class points. The Scottish W21s exacted their revenge though, with three of the top four, incuding an eight minute winning margin for Daisy McNamara, and this swung the momentum back in favour of the blue team.
Joel Atkinson was victorious in M20 for Scotland, as England filled places 3 and 4, and a 5th place for Angus Laird was sufficient to take the class for Scotland.
Bidding for a decisive margin, Scotland suffered a setback in W20, which was won by England's Sophie Crawford. STUOC's Sophie Howard was 2nd (102.18) for Scotland to reignite their hopes, but the second English scorer got in ahead of Scotland's #2, meaning two class wins and two runners-up for the larger nations.
It came down then to best 5th place counters, and an English 8th in W21 beat a Scottish 9th in M21 ensuring England took the first silverware of the weekend.
England struck first in the relay, as they nabbed the top two places in the men's race to regain the advantage, and Scotland's hopes rested on the women's squad pulling off a 1-2 in their race, but when Niamh Hunter went out for her final leg fully ten minutes behind surprise leaders Ireland, hopes looked slim.
Slim, in this case was quite good enough, thank you very much, as Niamh was back in 42.06, hotly pursued by squadmate Eilidh Campbell and the hail-mary was accomplished. Once again, the rule book had to be produced, and Scotland's three Individual course wins to England's one were sufficient to tip the balance in their favour.
Sophie Howard played a major part in the win, with the middle leg for the winning relay team backing up her 2nd place finish on the opening day. England had Sarah Rollins in their lineup, and she was 12th (131.12) in the individual race, four seconds behind FVO development officer Mairi Eades, and this carried over into the relay, where Mairi was 5th (55.18) on the anchor leg for a non-scoring Scotland III and Sarah was 6th (60.40) for the second English counter in the race.