Honours even - decision of Barry O'Neill and Rob James to share riders' title a fitting end to season

Barry O’Neill and Rob James have established themselves as the new era of riders at the top of the sport. Fittingly, the pair will end this season as joint-champions, having decided to sit out the weekend’s final four fixtures of the campaign.

They have treated the sport’s followers to a fantastic couple of weeks in the pointing fields, trading wins since the title race really burst into life when they claimed the opening five races between them at the bank holiday Monday fixture in Dawstown this month.

Such a showdown seemed unlikely just a few short months earlier, particularly after James enjoyed a fruitless autumn by his own high standards and trailed the defending champion 19 wins to four at the turn of the year.

With O’Neill enjoying a slow February, followed by an injury that he sustained at Knockanohill in March, an opportunity slowly began to present itself for James to claim a first national title. Such is the unpredictability of sport, he grabbed it with both hands in a tremendous comeback performance.

At the end of last Sunday’s action, the writing was probably on the wall that this decision to settle for a share of the title would come when O’Neill drew back level with James in the Ballindenisk finale. They have now elected to shake hands and call it quits.

You have to go back to 2002 for the last time that the overall title was shared. Back then, the late John Thomas McNamara and Davy Russell scored what at the time was a record 56 winners apiece in the first season to feature an autumn campaign. After McNamara took the first race on the final card of the season at Ballingarry to go level with Russell, they decided to sit out the remainder of their rides.

This year’s title-winning 39 wins is the lowest since the foot and mouth-hit 2001 campaign that had necessitated the introduction of that autumn term, highlighting the extent of the topsy-turvy season we have endured this time.

But out of that, we have reached a conclusion that recognises two excellent ambassadors for the current crop of point-to-point riders.

Weekend fixtures

Saturday
Ballingarry, first race 2.00
Tralee, first race 2.00

Sunday
Ballingarry, first race 2.00
Inchydoney, first race 2.00

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