ALTHOUGH Southend High for Boys received the major local plaudits for winning their 18th national athletics title in the past 10 years at the English Schools’ Cross-Country Cup, Eastwood certainly made plenty of friends at the event with their best ever display.

The school in Rayleigh Road, Eastwood, finished runners-up behind Merseyside’s St Anselm’s College in the junior boys’ competition and were fifth in the intermediate event won by Southend High.

The competition was run over an incredibly tough course of thick mud in Shepshed, Leicester, and Eastwood’s head of PE Scott Maclean admitted: “When we arrived at the venue the open long start looked perfect for the boys.

“However, behind those manicured fields was over one kilometre of pathway that resembled something for a World War One trench warfare re-enactment.

“Just walking it tired us out!”

But Eastwood went out and gave a performance that even had Great Britain’s Commonwealth Games gold medalist and Olympic star Lisa Dobriskey describing as “exceptional”. “When hard work and talent come together, the results speak for themselves — Eastwood clearly has both in abundance,” she said.

And Maclean added: “With most qualifying schools being either large grammars or even larger independent schools, our achievements are quite remarkable.

“Our athletes deserve all the praise as the results show that not many schools with two teams in action did better than us.”

Eastwood had prepared for their big day by sharing a hotel with the rugby team from French visitors Perpignan, who were preparing for their Heineken Cup match with Leicester.

Full results were reported in Echosport yesterday, but for the record Rayleigh’s FitzWimarc were fourth in the junior boys and sixth in the intermediates.

On the girls’ front Southend High were 13th in the junioirs, where Fitz were 18th, and ninth in the intermediate.