Nathan Woodward was athlete of the match on Saturday

Woodward’s the Beagles’ star but they still play second fiddle

Colin Munford Friday, August 3, 2012
12:00 PM

Beagles’ strong season in the men’s Premiership of the British Athletics League continued with another solid second spot at Hendon on Saturday.

Newham & Essex Beagles’ strong season in the men’s Premiership of the British Athletics League continued with another solid second spot at Hendon on Saturday.

Event winners Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers maintain a 101-point lead at the top of the league standings though after a haul of 366 points, with Newham 16 points behind.

Nathan Woodward walked away with the athlete of the match award after his convincing A 400m hurdles victory in a time of 49.53 seconds, and was followed by a B win for Richard Davenport in 50.76.

Included in a total of eight wins, Gianni Frankis took first spot in the 110m hurdles with a time of 13.84, while Chris Clarke (pictured below) followed that up with victory in the A 400m in 46.27.

Over the longer distances, Rory Chesser also tasted success in the A 3,000m steeplechase as he managed to see off Shaftesbury’s Ian Rawlinson, clocking 8.53.10 for the win.

There were also three wins in the field events for the Beagles as Amir Williamson took the B hammer by almost 10 metres with a throw of 61.71m and Matthew Devereux’s 5.00m pole vault clearance was also good enough to take the victory.

Gintas Degutis was also in winning form as he headed Birchfield Harrier Edward Dunford in the B shot putt after a throw of 15.03m.

Backing up those solid wins was a series of second places, two in the javelin through Chris Hughff and Jahmal Germain, followed up by Greg Beard in the A shot putt and JJ Jegede in the long jump with a leap of 7.21m.

Back on the track, Frank Baddick was just pipped to the line by Muktar Mohamed in the A 800m and missed out to the same athlete in the 1,500m A.

Davenport, Emmanuel Stephens and Samatar Farah continued to clock up the points for Newham as they took runner-up spots in the B 400m, A 200m and A 3000m steeplechase.

Kevin Skinner occupied third spot in the B 3000m, a feat that was emulated by Beard in the B discus and Eusebio Da Silva in the B long jump.

But despite the pleasing set of results they couldn’t loosen the hold of Shaftesbury on top spot and in fact, they increased their lead going into the last meeting at Liverpool on August 18.