Wednesday night proved hugely successful for sport in Sunderland as the Royal Blues placed two teams in the top ten at Wallsend Harriers’ annual Gordon Smith Relays.

Whilst some 47,000 people were distracted by events taking place back in the city centre, the real action was taking place on Cobalt Business Park, a couple of miles north of the Tyne Tunnel.

Michael Thompson, Andy Powell and Nathan Reed teamed up to win the 3 x 2 miles event held in memory of the former Wallsend club Chairman (teams must include one Vet runner), continuing the theme of the night by relegating Newcastle’s Elswick Harriers to second place by a comfortable 17 seconds in 30:19.

Thompson led the trio out in 10:22, fastest by a Vet on the night, handing over in seventh place to Andy Powell, who in his debut outing as men’s captain, scythed through the field to bring leaders Elswick into range, giving Nathan a 16 second deficit to make up on the anchor leg. In a perfect sharpener ahead of the North-Eastern 5000m championship this weekend, Nathan made light work of the gap and brought the team home in front with the joint second fastest time of the day of 9:54, one of only four men to break ten minutes on the new, revised course.

Alan Hodgson (11:38), Michael Thompson (10:42) and Jake Jansen (10:30) combined to progress steadily through the field to crack the top ten, with a combined time of 32:50.

Both Andy and Nathan showed an impressive turn of foot over the largely flat, fast course, and both will be gunning for further honours at Gateshead on Sunday.