The Junior Men's race also had a defending champ that wanted to wear the crown another year. Mullingar's Mark Christie shared the spotlight with clubmate Martin Fagan last year. Fagan became ill and unfortunately never fully recovering enough to battle Christie. There was a new crop of young wanna-bees wanting to dethrone Christie.

As is often the case, the lads took the race out very fast. The layout of the course was very conducive to this tactic. After a slight incline from the starting line, the course had a series of level portions followed by a steep downhill. Next, there was a brief upgrade, a sharp bend before a brief down hill portion where you met a hill that was a steep as it was long. To make the hill more difficult, there were heavy conditions afoot. There was a pack at the crest on the first of the four laps. After lap two, Christie had a substantial lead. He turned his to check on the gap and smiled knowing that a second title was his. What was once a pack eclipsed into a parade of fatigued runners struggling up the hill on one side of the course and attempting to recover on the other.

Eddie McDonagh's young Dundrum squad had three runners in the top 6 and with #4 placing 21st, DSD totaled 32 points almost doubling second place Raheny's 62 points.

Comparing this win to last year's Christie explained, "Last year I missed two weeks in January. I had bronchitis, so I was really unprepared. It came as a surprise that I won it. It was easy on the day compared to this year. Today was the hardest race I have ever ran - the hardest course. The Avondale course was deceptively hilly."

Christie describes how he felt on the course; "I was feeling very good on the level parts but not when it came to the hills. The first hill wasn't too bad. I could feel it on the second, the third lap was very bad and the last one was unbelievable. Once you got off the hill your legs were filled with lactic acid - you had nothing left in you. I practically walked after the last hill. I looked behind myself and saw a guy [Alan McCormick] was coming on strong so I had to pick it up a good bit."

Junior Men ~ 8k: 1) Mark Christie, Mullingar Harriers 28.17; 2) Alan McCormack, Dundrum South Dublin 28.33; 3) Joseph Sweeney, DSD 28.46; 4) Andrew Ledwith, Fr. Murphy's 28.57; 5) Mark Hanrahan, Leevale 29.00; 6) Patrick White, DSD 29.14; 7) Dan Mulhaire, North Laois 29.20; 8) Richard Corcoran, Raheny Shamrock 29.29; 9) Colm Turner, Dooneen 29.34; 10) Sean Hehir, Marian 29.45

Junior Men Club Result: 1) Dundrum South Dublin 32 points (2, 3, 6, 21); 2) Raheny Shamrock 62 points (8, 12, 17, 25); 3) Leevale 76 points (5, 11, 26, 34); 4) St Laurence O'Toole 96 points (22, 23, 24, 27); 5) Mulingar Harriers 102 points (1, 32, 33, 36); 6) Clonliffe Harriers 121 points (14, 15, 44, 48)