The scenery has been epic and the racing amazing so far. But with so many still in contention, Rás Mumhan should split badly up the Coomanaspic, (Photo: Brendan Slattery)
By Brian Canty
Eoin Morton believes expected showdown on the penultimate stage of the Kerry Group Rás Mumhan will be a battle between Ryan Sherlock, Mark Dowling and anyone else who can climb.
The cat 1 ascent of the Coomanaspic with 35 kilometres remaining has long been billed as the key part of the race and with so many still in contention, Morton expects sparks to fly.
“I think the UK teams will try to ride like they have done; control it as much as possible. So they’ll try to dictate it up to that category one,” he said.
“I know if they do that, like they’ve rode for Paidi (O’Brien) the last two days (by bringing back any moves to tee up the sprint); if they do it again they’ll ride the race for Dowling and he’ll be delighted.”
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Eoin Morton expects Mark Dowling, second right, to animate the race on stage 3 (Photo: Brendan Slattery)
“Going over the cat 2 at Reenaree today, when Dowling went to the front the whole bunch split to pieces. There wasn’t 20 left at the top.
“I think Dowling and Sherlock will be the men to watch; they haven’t put their noses in the wind all that much,” added Morton.
Morton himself went for glory yesterday and was out front with Bryan McCrystal inside five kilometres to go.
And with 50 seconds on the bunch it looked like they’d stay away. But it wasn’t to be.
“I think that’s overplayed a bit,” said Morton. “It makes me look better than I was.
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“The Rapha lads had almost brought him (McCrystal) back and I went across and Bryan eased up when he saw me at 10 seconds and away we went.”
Eoin Morton has ridden aggressively thus far and believes defending champion Mark Dowling may be just about to pounce (Photo: Pat Doherty)
It looked very good indeed for the pair as they hit the 5k to go sign with clear daylight on the chasers.
“I knew we had a serious chance into the finish then. It was a calculated risk, a gamble.
“I’m not one to go for a bunch sprint from 50 and pick up eighth place; 20 quid or a broken collar bone.
“I’d prefer to clip away and try to take it but that’s a bigger risk... it didn’t pay off.
“We were fully committed to it, we were clipping along at 60kph, it was full-tilt and it’s a fast run-in.
“But when we looked back and saw a little rise we saw Martyn Irvine had joined the chase and that was it then.
“We had 50 seconds and 5k but that tumbled down pretty quick so I imagine that was Martyn’s firepower.”
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