Sweeney Shield Relay

6 teams of Napier Harriers competed for the club's Sweeney Shield on Saturday afternoon. The Shield is one of the club's oldest trophies, having been first presented in 1934, the year the club was founded. It is competed for in road relay competition. The teams were selected by the handicapper, Mark Speakman, to provide even racing throughout the event and most were in agreement that he had done a splendid job, with the lead changing three times and the fifth place team at the end of the first leg being victorious at the end of the day. The course takes the teams around the Puketapu circuit in five legs. The first runs from the clubrooms in Taradale, over Puketapu Hill to Springfield Road. Chris Corney showed he is returning to form by leading the teams to the changeover, but Craig Mathers also showed good form to finish just 9 seconds in arrears. Darryl Strachan was five seconds further back with Brent Jones sitting on his shoulder. Peter Gillies was exactly 1 minute behind Jones, and John Craven was 59 seconds further adrift. It was interesting to watch the last two teams progress through the field as the race wore on. Corney handed on to Abbey Green who then ran a very well judged leg to keep her team in the hunt, finishing the leg in second place, behind Adele Marsh who had taken over from Strachan. But the big mover on this leg was Brendan Speakman who produced a superb run. Taking over from Gillies in fifth place, Speakman ran fastest time for the leg and took his team through to third place, finishing just 4 seconds behind Green. At this stage, Craven’s team was still in last place although Sheila Smidt, returning from surgery, had brought them to within 4 seconds of fifth place. Leg 3 saw Jo Cavanagh produce another of her brilliantly judged runs, running fastest time for the leg and taking Craven’s team from last through to third. Cheryl Simpson running for Gillies team picked up another spot and they were now sitting in third, while Andre Smith ran very solidly to hold the lead for Strachan’s team. There was action aplenty on leg 4, with Ryan Woolley running very strongly to take Gillies’ team through to the lead, but the really outstanding run came from Kane Green who ran Mathers team back from last to second place. Despite the best efforts of Wayne Smith, Strachan’s team had dropped back to third. Heading into the final leg, Gillies’ team held a 27 second margin over second spot and with Stephen Lindsay running the final leg, looked to have the race in the bag. But, with a touch of irony the main competition for the win was to come from Gillies’ himself. As there were 29 athletes turned out on the day and the teams are teams of five, someone had to run twice and Peter Gillies was that man. Starting 1:25 down in fifth place, Gillies, running now for Craven’s team, quickly picked up Laura Smidt (Strachan’s team) for fourth place, and then Trevor Fulton (Jones’ team) for third place. He then started working on 11 year old Eric Speakman (running for Mathers team), who was holding desperately onto Lindsay and giving nothing away. Gillies finally caught Speakman at the Taradale Police Station, just 150 meters from the finish but Lindsay had enough to hold him out by 25 seconds at the line with Speakman running in 4 seconds later. So the wining team was Peter Gillies, Brendan Speakman, Cheryl Simpson, Ryan Woolley and Stephen Lindsay. Second was John Craven, Sheila Smidt, Jo Cavanagh, Alan Heywood and Peter Gillies and third was Craig Mathers, Aleesha Heywood, Shayna Heywood, Kane Green and Eric Speakman. Of interest as the final results were calculated was that on leg 4 Ryan Woolley and Stefan Smith had run within 1 second of each other. And even more remarkably, on leg 5 Stephen Lindsay and Trevor Fulton ran exactly the same time, with Eric Speakman just 4 seconds slower.

Place	Lap 1 - 5km	Time	Lap 2 - 2.7km	Time	Lap 3 - 3.1km	Time	Lap 4 - 5.3km	Time	Lap 5 - 4.5km	Time	Total
1	Peter Gillies	18:41	Brendan Speakman	11:48	Cheryl Simpson	13:16	Ryan Woolley	19:58	Stephen Lindsay	17:26	1:21:09
2	John Craven	19:40	Sheila Smidt	12:54	Jo Cavanagh	11:40	Alan Heywood	20:54	Peter Gillies	16:26	1:21:34
3	Craig Mathers	17:29	Aleesha Heywood	15:01	Shayna Heywood	12:56	Kane Green	18:44	Eric Speakman	17:30	1:21:40
4	Brent Jones	17:41	Bronwyn Farquharson	13:11	Don McLeod	14:10	Stefan Smith	19:59	Trevor Fulton	17:26	1:22:27
5	Darryl Strachan	17:34	Adelle Marsh	12:38	Andre Smith	12:31	Wayne Smith	22:11	Laura Smidt	17:46	1:22:40
6	Chris Corney	17:20	Abbey Green	13:05	Gina Finlayson	14:27	Steve Dent	21:27	Sonya Clark	18:07	1:24:26

Previous Years Results Here:-

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009