This year the qualifiers were at Kinnoul Hill and the yellow weather warning wasn’t going to stop us from smashing it. Well done to all who braved the weather, jet lag and tired xc legs. With FVO out the way as they are a rather large club it was time to take on the rest of the Scottish clubs in the Trophy.

Our youngest did us proud on the Orange with Inis securing a fantastic 5th. With tired XC legs Lucy with a solid 4th on the Junior Women, then our junior man Laurence in 2nd. Ann was crowned the short green champion. Club Captain Rob was the swiftest of our INTs on the green course in 4th with Graeme A and Mike securing 10th and 15th, top work. Our green women flew round with Claire topping the podium, Mary 8th and Lorna 10th. The blue men were also jam packed in with Ben H taking the dub, Colin 6th, Pat 11th, Graeme R 16th and a jet lagged Max in 20th. Bex pipping Mairi off the podium by 5 seconds on the blue women with new signing Lindsay Robertson in 10th and Pippa 13th. The short brown saw Murray in silver and William in 14th. Finally, the brown men packed themselves in with James, Oleg, Freddie, Ben S, Doug, Michael and Daniel securing 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th,8th, 13th and 19th.

Incredible work from all, we got all the controls, in the right order and picked up the right courses (the same cannot be said for many other cubs). We have secured our place comfortably through to the final (this year not too far away) in Redcar on the 14th of September so get that date in the diary and look out your bucket and spade as we’re off to the beach and sand dunes.

Also heading south will be ESOC, Invoc (tied 2nd place), Maroc and Moravian (tied 4th place). The number of Scottish clubs and our performance at last year's final, mean that (as far as we can fathom the rules) 5 clubs get to go.

(by Mairi Eades)

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