Nothing much had changed from recent years as Seamus Power came sloshing through the mud to retain the McDonnells-sponsored National Inter-counties Championship at Ballyhaise yesterday.

Power showed himself to be fully recovered from his first marathon just five weeks ago by surging into the lead with 1,800 metres to go.

In the end he had four seconds to spare over Cormac Finnerty when crossing the line in 35 minutes 29 seconds at the end of the 10,000 metres journey. Martin McCarthy, the Cork champion, was third - just ahead of the two Dubliners Noel Cullen and Noel Berkeley.

Earlier, Power had occasionally looked uncomfortable on the difficult underfoot conditions. After Donegal's Pauric McKinney had opened a lead of about 25 metres in the early stages, it was Finnerty and McCarthy who drove the pace in the middle part of the race with the champion tucked in behind.

At that point it looked as if Power might have to pay the price of his road running exertions but, inexorably, he moved to the front and once there he never looked like being caught.

Finnerty, suffering in the absence of his Westmeath team-mates Tom McGrath and David Burke, had no more to give and with McCarthy's strength giving out over the last 1,000 metres, Power was away on his own. Thanks to notable contributions from Killian Lonergan, Colm de Burca and Colm Rothery, Dublin retained the team title.

Valerie Vaughan and Una English, the two Cork runners who have returned from abroad to prepare for the World Cross Country Championship in March, fought out a fine finish to the women's championship.

After getting away from the defending champion Maureen Harrington, they were running shoulder to shoulder before Vaughan surged with a kilometre to go. Cork, as expected, won the team championship from Donegal and Dublin.

Gary Murray, an outstanding talent from Donegal, won the men's junior race, going away from Gary Thornton in 22 minutes six seconds with the women's equivalent going to Aoife Byrne of Dublin.