Bennelong and WHO delivered stunning wins in Division 1 as MetrO League kicked off with a massive 212 participants - more than anyone can remember in 25 years of the competition.
The tranquility of the northern section of Manly Dam was broken only by the 'ting' of baseball bats warming up at Aquatic Reserve.
ML co-ordinator Ian Jessup noted about 20 debutants across the five grades - including two West Australian NOL runners and a couple of primary school students. How good are our kids?!
Manly Dam is an area with a renowned thickness of vegetation but enough tracks and cliffs to allow shortcuts for the daring.
Multiple champions Big Foot came unstuck with two Division 1 runners mispunching in their shock 31-21 loss to newly promoted hosts Bennelong Northside, while WHO roped in two spare Uringa runners to down Garingal 29-26.
Winning times were pretty close to the expected, except in Division 5 where 22 people went under time, while in Division 2 the all-Garingal match featured seven runners within two minutes of each other.
A big thanks to setter Peter Thomason, controller Rod Parkin, organiser Brett Sewell and the Bennelong Northside club.
Results, whiteboard scores and splits are linked on our ML web page.
Next round is June 23 at Nurragingy Reserve.
