Dillon Corkery’s Rás Tailteann diary: ‘I saw a bit of the country this week but it was definitely no holiday’

Although we were within a whisker of overall victory, there was no real team talk last night ahead of today’s final stage. This Irish team is really an U-23 team, with me here as the experienced elder, so it’s all about learning for the younger lads and Martyn [Irvine, team manager] has a great way of keeping everything calm and relaxed. After dinner, I even met a few friends and family for one quick pint in the hotel before bed.

After breakfast today, though, we checked out the roads, the wind, the weather and made our plan for the day. We executed that plan but it just turned out that others were stronger than us.

We did nothing until the Gaybo Howard Memorial King of the Mountains prime after 40km. Here, the Richardsons-Trek team took it up early for Conor McGoldrick but I knew they’d made a big mistake and led Dean [Harvey] up the side behind them for the sprint. We knew his lead in the competition was big enough that if he took any points at all on the climb he would go home with the Irish Independent King of the Mountains jersey. He took second behind McGoldrick, ensuring his place on the podium in Bective that afternoon.

The last KOM of this Rás came with about 60km to go. Here, Dean led me out and I kicked over the top, hoping take a couple of guys away with me. Instead, I was out front by myself heading onto the circuit in Bective so that was a bit of a balls-up. Eventually 10 or 12 lads came across, including the yellow jersey Dom Jackson, second-placed Conn McDunphy and fifth-placed Will Perrett. I don’t know why they didn’t commit to the move but with all three riding away from my team-mate Liam O’Brien in third I wasn’t going to help them.

They all started to look at each other on the next lap and the gap closed to about ten seconds, so I hit it just before the bunch caught us with a lap to go and went away in a split that included a team-mate each of McDunphy’s and Jackson’s, who weren’t going to ride with me and open the gap on their team leaders.

I gave it everything I could but we were caught on the last 14km lap. With about 5km to go, the plan was to lead Liam out on the small climb off the main road, in the hope that he’d go over the top and gain the second he needed to win the Rás on the run-in. I gave it one more go here but I think Liam lost the wheel and I ended up out front alone again.

I was caught with 2km to go and as the bunch floated past, I saw Odhran [Doogan] near the front. I gave myself a breather for about 30 seconds and started to weave my way back up to lead him out for the sprint. Odhran shouted that he was on my wheel but I think he got bounced off it with a shoulder on the last corner, just before the gallop to the line started. To be honest, I’d left absolutely everything out on the road and didn’t have much kick left anyway.

As British rider Tim Shoreman of Wheelbase sailed to victory, I crossed the line fourth and shattered. I don’t think I could have given any more today. We set out this morning with the aim of trying to take the yellow, similar to what I did last year, but things just didn’t work out.

In fairness to Dom Jackson and his Foran team, they rode a great race. There was obviously a lot of pressure on them during the week, so credit to them and to Wheelbase today for another stage win. The English boys were very impressive this week and my young Irish team-mates did a great job too, taking home the U-23 and climber’s jerseys.

After a tough early season in France, I came back here on my holidays initially, with no intention of riding this Rás, but it’s great to see the race back to where it used to be, so all credit to race director Gerard Campbell and the crew, and to Bective Stud who obviously put a lot of effort into the finish today.

I saw a bit of the country this week alright but it was definitely no holiday. It was a pretty tough five days, but all my family were here all week looking after me. That’s the main reason I came home from France, because I wanted to be with family again. They’re a big part of my life and without them I wouldn’t be where I am today, so it was nice being back home.

I’ll probably go for a few pints in the big smoke tonight before flying back to France tomorrow, where I’ll take the week completely off the bike. I’ve an apartment to renovate though, so I’ll probably be plastering and painting instead. Still, it’ll be nice to get back to the real world and forget about cycling for a while. I’ll be back on June 23 for the national championships in Athea though. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there.