Nothing much has changed in the hierarchy of Irish cross country running after the National Intercounties Championship had conformed to script in Dungarvan yesterday.

Just as he had done in the last five stagings of the championship, Seamus Power of Clare ran the opposition ragged in conditions which again put a heavy premium on strength and bravery.

The rain, which thankfully held off for the bulk of the programme, fell in sheets during the second half of the men's senior race to intimidate all but the most intrepid of the spectators spread around the course.

Power's survival equipment in this kind of weather is legendary, and it stood the test yet again as the Clareman went into the record books as the first to take the title for a sixth consecutive year.

That he achieved it on terrain close to the base of Gerry Deegan, who previously held the record, was fitting. In his time, the Waterford man had been proof against all pressure, but one wonders if even he could have coped with the precision running which puts Power apart from all his contemporaries in the modern era.

On this occasion he chose to go out hard from the off, presumably in the hope of intimidating those who sought his title. It worked in every instance except for Gareth Turnbull, the talented Belfast man and his training partner Peter Matthews who more than most perhaps sensed that if the champion was to be upstaged it was imperative that he not get away on his own in the first half of the race.

Matthews, troubled by a back injury for much of the last two years, again hung on bravely and shortly before the halfway mark it looked as if he was poised to deliver one of the biggest upsets in years.

After running in the slipstream of Power and Turnbull, the Dubliner surged into the lead and proceeded to hold it with some authority for the next 800 metres.

As it transpired, however, Power was only biding his time. After studying the strength of the opposition in some detail, he obviously decided that he had more in reserve than his challengers and once he put his foot on the accelerator the outcome was never in doubt.

Skimming over the mud which trapped so many others, he extended his lead over the last 1,500 metres and eventually had 17 seconds to spare over Turnbull when finishing in a time of 30 minutes, 35 seconds.

"All six of my wins in this race have been different, but this one was probably the toughest of them all," he said.

"I had made up my mind to attack early, but just as I suspected there was no getting away from either Peter or Gareth in the early stages. I think I hurt him when I again attacked on the third lap, but in all honesty I also hurt myself. That was hard running but I knew that if I was going to hang on to my title I couldn't afford to loiter and gamble on winning it in a sprint finish."

"Gareth Turnbull is a quality athlete with a lot of track speed, so it was essential that I put myself out of reach before he could use it on the last lap. The tactic worked and I opened up a sufficient gap to make the race safe."

Matthews, who like Turnbull also finished in the wake of the Clareman in an international race at Ghent three weeks ago, had no excuses to offer in defeat.

"Today I felt stronger than I have done all season - it was just a case of being beaten by a better man on the day," he said.

Fiachra Lombard, the talented young Cork athlete, ran exceptionally well to edge his team-mate Ken Nason out of fourth place, and John Ferrin, a former national interclub champion, finished just ahead of Noel Berkeley, whose chances were not helped by a long car journey which started at 8 a.m. in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan.

Power, Matthews, Turnbull, Lombard and Nason took the automatic qualifying places in the team to compete in the European Championships at Malmo next month and the remaining optional position goes to the newly crowned American Collegiate champion, Keith Kelly, who did not run yesterday.

The women's champion is the popular Laois athlete Anne Keenan-Buckley, who reached back into the past for the form to finish ahead of Maureen Harrington of Kerry and the emerging Dubliner Niamh Beirne.

Keenan-Buckley, who won this title for the first time In Santry in 1987, again proved that at 37 years she still retains the fierce competitive attitude which enables her to finish ahead of runners half her age.

She swept into an early lead on this occasion and after extending it to 100 metres at halfway, eventually had some 200 metres to spare over her closest pursuer, Harrington, when crossing the line in 18 minutes, 0.4 seconds at the end of the 5,000m journey.

Rosemary Ryan, who pulled out of the race just before the start because of an injury, gets one of the optional places in the team for the European Championships with the other going to the University College Cork student Mary Margaret Meade.

Meade appeared to have lost her chance when she went astray midway through the race yesterday and was passed by the Kerry athlete Freda Davoren. The selectors took the view, however, that Meade has more to offer in Sweden than Davoren and in spite of finishing out of the first four she was promoted to join Keenan-Buckley, Harrington, Beirne and Ryan in Sweden.