Sean Lacey has enjoyed, or endured, a number of second places so far this season. But he believes his form is good and if he can avoid bad luck there's no reason why another win at Kerry Group Rás Mumhan over the Easter weekend is not possible.
By Brian Canty
Winner of the Kerry Group Rás Mumhan in 2011, Sean Lacey believes he can win the event overall for a second time this year.
The Tralee man, riding for the Aquablue team, has been one of the most consistent riders in the country over the last number of years and underlined that with another superb showing in the Visit Nenagh Classic at the weekend.
Lacey crossed the line in second place behind team mate and fellow breakaway man Damien Shaw. He now believes he’s in the kind of form good enough to win overall when the Easter showpiece in the Republic comes to a close next Monday.
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“I think so, definitely,” he says of the possibility of taking the final yellow jersey.
“It’s not a case of needing good luck, it’s more about having no bad luck.
“When I was defending champion in 2012 I remember I was involved in a silly crash in the last 20k and I lost over a minute and the GC was gone and that was bad luck. You try to avoid bad luck; race the way you always do and if it’s going to happen it will happen.
“Look, it’s like the old cliché; you can’t win it the first day but you can definitely lose it. So for anyone interested in the overall the first stage is a very nervy one and you have to be in the break.
“It comes down to team tactics and getting men in the break, there’s no rocket science behind it.”
Asked what stage he believes will prove crucial, he pinpoints Saturday’s expected hell-raiser starting and finishing in Kenmare.
“It’s a very tough stage. I think it’s harder than the Saturday stage last year where we went down by Castletownbere.
“A big factor will be the weather, as always. There are a lot of open roads and the climbs are very hard, they’re dead climbs, except the county bounds. But that’s going to be a headwind.
“It will be a tough race, it’s hard to call. You could play it safe and follow the moves and hope to be fresh in the last hour of the race every day but then you run the risk of having the race disappear up the road.
“It’s hard to know will the selection be made on the Healy Pass and stay away, for example. Or will people be marking each other and a move go away after it? It’s a tough one, and hard to predict. We’ll just try to cover the moves.”
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One of a number of second places so far this year; being beaten for the win at Rás Luimní by Paidi O'Brien last month (Photo: www.blackumbrella.ie)
However, he insists if his team which has been so dominant this year fails to win the event it would not mean failure for them.
“No, not at all. Whenever you’re on a run in these races it will inevitably come to an end. But what we always aim to do is race honest and if things fall into place and we win the race, fair enough.
“And if we don’t and we do everything right and we’re happy, then that’s fine too. You have to be realistic, we are on good form and we have won good races but there’s races we haven’t won too.
“It could so happen that we don’t win but the season is long, there’s the Elliott the week after, the Tour of Ulster, the Suir Valley. But we’ll go in prepared this weekend and do everything as best we can and if it works, it works and if it doesn’t we’ll move on.”
Lacey has not yet won a race in 2014 yet but has been right up there in quite a few of the bigger events. He was second in the Minane Bridge Classic, second in Rás Luimní and second last Sunday. But he’s not at all worried about that drought.
“There’s no doubt we all have talent in the team, and we all get on very well so that when someone else is up the road we’re happy to stop behind and play the team role,” he says.
“So as long as the team win, that’s what matters. You saw it in the Des Hanlon when Keith (Gater) and (Bryan) McCrystal were up the road, we were covering from behind.
“And this Sunday myself and Damien were up the road with Robin and we were 100 per cent sure the lads behind were blocking anything.
“It’s not like it’s drilled into us that we must be team mates, we just all get on well and we’re happy to see the others succeed and we’ll help out as best we can for that to happen.”
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