Richard Alleyne

Men take third and ladies fourth in latest league meetings.

A heavily depleted Woodford Green AC with Essex Ladies men’s squad finished joint third with Newham & Essex Beagles in the British Athletic League Premiership encounter on Saturday.

But in a solid team effort a sprint hurdles win for Richard Alleyne, a steeplechase double from Ryan McKinlay and Tomas Pilbersek, and a B string 1,500m victory from debutant Ed Shepherd were the highlights of the event.

Mark Dry has been in good hammer form recently but lost out to his Olympic rival Alex Smith as he threw 69.93metres for second place.

Peter Clarke stood in for the injured Andy Frost and placed third in the B event with 54.19m, while Devon Douglas in the B shot putt was placed second with 14.04m.

The javelin also brought good points, as Simon Bennett placed third in the A with 61.66m.

Alleyne’s 110m hurdles victory in 13.96 was followed up with a close second place in the B string for Dan Davis in a season’s best 14.23.

Dan Awde placed second in the B 400m with 48.23, while there was disappointment when Olympic relay hopeful Graham Hedman suffered cramp halfway through the A event.

The double steeplechase victory was one of a number of useful middle distance performances.

McKinlay’s win came in a time of 9.25.86 as Plibersek held on for a B string victory with 9.39.36.

In the B 800m event Tom Phillips placed second in 1.58.21 and later in the 1,500m, Phillips placed third in the A string with 4.01.17.

Eighteen-year-old Ed Shepherd called into his first league action took B string victory with 4.02.87.

The 5,000m was to be Hywell Care’s last race for Woodford for some time, as he is about to take up a teaching post in Japan, and he placed fourth in the A with 14.51.46.

Welsh Commonwealth Games representative Matt Shone took B string victory with 15.07.42.

The meeting finished with two solid third-place relay performances to take a creditable tied third place.

■ Meanwhile, it was a similar case for the women in their league fixture at Birmingham, though Sarah Claxton picked up victory in the 100m hurdles as the team finished a solid fourth place with 193 points.

Claxton was a comfortable winner of the A string with 13.38 and was ably backed up in the B string by Stephanie Gaynor who placed second with 14.05.

There was a B win for Tracey Duncan in the 400m and Elaine O’Neil took back in third in the A string with 12.04.

Vicki Barr, who was due to compete over both 400m and 200m, was sadly injured with a hamstring tear, whilst warming up shortly before the 400m start.

Kitty Eleyae placed second with an effort of 6.06m in the long jump and in the B event heptathlete Gemma Weetman won with 5.69m.

Hannah Frankson took third in the A triple jump in 12.64m, with Stephanie Aneto first in the B with 12.58m.

The high jump saw Moe Sasegbon place second in the A with 1.70m and Ayamba Akim also second in the B with 1.65m. In the B pole vault Kirsty McIntosh was second with 3.20m. Lucy Marshall took second in the B shot putt.

In the 800m B Kathrine Foy took victory in 2.18.55 as the team finished in fourth spot.