It all came good at last for the Ireland team in the FBD Milk Ras yesterday. At the end of the fifth stage of 91 miles from Listowel to Castletownbere, Tommy Evans won from Sigvard Kukk of Estonia, and Evans is now second to Kukk overall, with Ciaran Power third.

Kukk was first at the end of last Saturday's opening stage, with Power and Evans just behind, but he lost the lead to Kosie Loubser of South Africa and slipped to fifth. With Karl Donnelly now 22nd, Ireland head the team classification.

There has been a marked reluctance by the principal contenders to take over the leader's yellow jersey, and Irish team manager Richie Beatty was very satisfied with the way things are going for his men.

"It's great to have the two of them so close and still not have to defend the lead," he said. "We were being criticised, but we had been closely marked by the South Africans. It was a nice compliment, to be regarded by them as their chief opponents, but they could not match us when the chips were down."

Evans, Ras winner two years ago and sixth last year, said he set out with a stage win as his main aim, but now the slight Banbridge man is nicely poised to win again. Now 25, the computer programmer is just 5 ft 6 in and weighs 9 st 7 lb, which is half a stone lighter that when he won the Ras.

At the end of the hardest stage so far, Evans sprinted from 200 yards out and held off Kukk, with Wayne Randle (Manchester) third. Power was in a group of eight, placed 10th, 42 seconds behind. They were led in by Innar Mandoja of Estonia, with Paul Griffin (Carlow) fifth and Dermot Finnegan (Meath) sixth. Finnegan and Griffin are now eighth and 10th overall at 3:49.

The overnight leader, Kosie Loubser (South Africa), came in four minutes and 46 seconds behind Evans and dropped to 12th at 4:02, while Yasuhiro Ando (Japan) and David O'Loughlin (Mayo) have gone from second and third to 13th and 15th. Loubser said their plan was for him to go with all the early moves, but he missed out on the important one.

After the Shannon ferry crossing from Killimer to Tarbert and a transfer on the Listowel for the start, Randle, Mark Lovatt (UK Bentec) and Frenchman Vincent Soulet made the first break, but at 12 miles they were joined by 15 others. Evans and Kukk were there with Griffin, and also included were Kieran MacMahon and David Hourigan (Limerick), David Peelo (Dublin-Sorrento), Akira Kakinuma and Fumio Shiomami (Japan), Alges Massikmets (Estonia), Uwe Hardter and Dennis Haueisen (Germany), Jeroen Slagter (Netherlands), Jerome Onesime (France), Richard Hobby and Neil Smith (Lincoln).

At Tralee, 16 miles, the 18 leaders were 1:15 ahead. By the third category Knockaderry climb outside Farranfore, where Hourigan led the way, the gap was two minutes, but it quickly grew to four minutes after Killarney.

On the first serious climb, to Lady's View, where Hourigan and Hobby fell, Randle, Evans and Kukk left the rest and that was the last they saw of them until the approach to the finish in Castletownbere.

Randle led over all the other climbs to take the lead in the king of the mountains classification - he accumulated 84 points, with Evans closest on 46 and Kukk 41.

Another group formed to chase the leaders and came through strongly from the back.

Power was there with Stephane Riffler of France, Heiko Szonn (Germany), Finnegan, Mandoja, Bill Hart (UK Bentec) and Eugene Moriarty (Kerry). As Randle, Evans and Kukk battled their way over the Healy Pass, Power's group of seven joined Griffin, Lovatt and Kakinuka, the last survivors of the original break.

On the descent from the Healy Pass Moriarty crashed, and although he suffered a suspected fractured wrist he still finished and came into Castletownbere over half an hour down.

As the three leaders raced towards the finish, the eight-man chasing group relentlessly reduced the advantage. With 10 miles to go the gap was 2:30, with eight miles left it was down to 1:40, two miles later 1:30, then 55 seconds, and only 42 seconds elapsed after Evans, Kukk and Randle had crossed the line when Mandoja led the charge in for fourth place.

Today's stage is 95 miles to Mallow with three third category climbs at 11, 23 and 38 miles, and then a first category one at 45 miles.