Emotional Allan gets his reward
Gordon Walker’s sage prediction nine years ago finally rang true at Christchurch’s New Brighton Beach late on Saturday afternoon.
Walker, a three-time Coast to Coast men’s longest day champion and the coach of two-time canoeing Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington, was pivotal in Dougal Allan’s drought-breaking triumph.
Wanaka’s Allan finally tasted glory in the 243km endurance race after three previous second place finishes and another third place effort.
Competing in the event for the first time since 2013, Allan, 33, who has concentrated on ironman, prevailed over Christchurch’s Sam Manson and top seed, Australian Alex Hunt, in
11hr 15min.
In Walker’s last attempt at the longest day in 2010, he held off Allan to win, and prophesied the runner-up would be a future champion.
After so many near misses, Allan enlisted Walker to be his coach and repaid his mentor with an overdue longest day title.
‘‘In his last race at the finish line, [Walker] said, ‘Dougal Allan has got what it takes and he’ll win this race one day’,’’ Allan said on Saturday.
‘‘I rang him about 12 weeks ago and said, ‘Let’s not make a liar out of you mate. He stepped up and shared a lot of knowledge with me and gave me a lot of guidance.’’
Allan produced a powerful paddle on the 70km kayak leg on the Waimakariri River to come out of the water first. An excellent cyclist, he powered home on the
69.5km ride into Christchurch to win by a comfortable 15-minute margin from Manson.
Embracing wife Amy,
son Flynn (4) and daughter Matilda
(2) at the finish line, Allan choked up when explaining what the result meant to him.
He hadn’t raced in the Coast to Coast for six years, fearing failure, but said he had to ‘‘get over himself"’ and show his kids accomplishing dreams wasn’t easy.
‘‘Flynn here and Matilda, they’re my world. A big part of coming back was to set an example to them that you’ve got to reach for your goals and success is never guaranteed. I just wanted them to see I had the courage to come and have a crack.’’
Meanwhile, retired All Blacks great Richie McCaw and good friend Rob Nichol, the New Zealand Rugby Players Association boss, finished fourth in the twoday tandem team event. They posted a time of 14hours 49mins
29secs.
In the two-day individual race, Lachie Brownlie won the men’s race in 12hours 41min 15secs. Selena Metherell was the women’s two-day champion in
14hours 28min 01 sec. An expatriate Australian rugby coach claims Ireland’s attack is ‘‘like watching paint dry’’.
Matt Williams, who once coached Scotland and is a former Leinster and Ulster coach, criticised Joe Schmidt’s team as ‘‘one-dimensional’’ despite their 22-13 win over Scotland at Murrayfield.
‘‘Formula One car, they’re a formula one car, but they were in third gear,’’ Ireland-based Williams on Virgin Media One after yesterday’s Six Nations clash.
‘‘They tried their heart out and you never question the courage of this team. That’s not what anyone is talking about, or their commitment, but their attack was like watching paint dry.
‘‘It was very boring and very one dimensional. If you’re Gregor Townsend [Scotland coach] you’re going ‘we blew that’.’’
Schmidt admitted it ‘‘wasn’t the prettiest game’’ but he was ‘‘partially’’ pleased with Ireland’s display.
‘‘I think we just muscled our way through it to be honest,’’ he told BBC Sport. ‘‘We got a peach of a set-piece try and we got a couple of broken field, running tries. I think we restricted them to an intercept try.
‘‘In that first half we were in our 22 for 34 per cent of the time and in our half for about 72 per cent of the time. That was a massive defensive effort.’’
Man of the match flanker Peter O’Mahony felt Ireland had repaid their fans for their faith.
‘‘We felt like we let them down a bit last week,’’ he told Virgin Media Sport.
‘‘We knew it was going to be a difficult task coming here but we know the character we have in our group and that certainly didn’t dissolve overnight.
‘‘You go into the dressing room and you’ve got characters that are too strong to have that belief dissipate.
‘‘We get huge confidence from each other. We know we’re good enough and it was an incredible performance to beat a side with the quality that Scotland have.’’
Meanwhile, it looms as a potential Six Nations decider in the next round but Wales coach Warren Gatland has warned his team it could end up suffering an ‘‘embarrassing’’ loss if they put out a display against England like they did against Italy.
While Wales were able to equal their longest test winning streak (11), their 26-15 victory in Rome yesterday was more struggle than sublime.
The match finished two tries apiece, with the visitors not crossing the line till the 53rd minute, and having to rely on four penalty goals from first five-eighth Dan Biggar against an Italian side who extended their tournament record of successive losses to 19.
The Welsh, thanks to a late George North intercept try beat France in Paris last weekend, face England in Cardiff next up in what could well be a battle of the two unbeaten teams, depending on what played out between England and France overnight.
England were mightily impressive in knocking over Ireland 32-20 in Dublin in the opening round and Gatland knows full well his team must lift