Hello and welcome to another season at the Bank of Ireland headquarters. After a stellar first season we have been granted promotion to cyclings 2nd tier, the Pro Continental divion, where our main aim will be to avoid relegation and build a base from which we can hope to achieve promotion to the PT within the next three years. Like last year, our focus lies on the British Isles, with special attention given to the young talent from the region. Of course to be competitive at this level, you can't solely focus on our home nations, so we will also be looking at riders from further afield to boost our chances.
Sponsors
Like last year, we are being sponsored by the biggest Irish bank, Bank of Ireland. They were very happy with our succes last season, and hope we can stay in the PCT for the seasons to come. They were however slightly disappointed with the way we failed our win goal at the Sean Kelly classic, so they hope to see some improvement there.
Compared to last year where only Bank of Ireland were visible on our jersey, many small sponsors have made the step up to help us secure our funding for the PCT without getting another big sponsor involved. Two of these, Guinness and Aer Lingus, were with us last season as well, supplying the team with transportation and beer. But we also managed to attract interest from overseas, with gapyear.com and Triple J joining the project. This might well mean that we will sign a few additional British or Australian riders!
Main Sponsor Bank of IrelandBanking
Minor Sponsors GuinnessBeverages Aer LingusTravel gapyear.comTravel Network Triple JRadio
With the start of the transfer season edging ever closer, many names have been dropped concerning the new PCT teams. Recently promoted, Bank of Ireland have kept quiet about potential targets so far, giving no official statement on the topic. However, Irish cycling site stickybottle.com have been speculating about a surprise move for one of British cyclings finest, Chris Froome.
Froome played a big part in securing Quicksteps PCT title last season, winning stages at the Tour Down Under and the Vuelta a Mallorca as well as winning the GP Onda-Boavista outright, but many believe the PT might be a step too high for the Kenyan born puncheur.
With the Sean Kelly classic moved to C1, Bank of Irelands goal will surely be a win there again, after failing so miserably last year, so a top puncheur is definitely being sought by the team. Persistent rumours have been going around since late September that Jose Mendes might not be considered good enough to lead the Irish squad at PCT level, so could Froome, the likeable superstar from closer to home, be the solution?
This is what Dip Paddy O'Fix, general manager of Bank of Ireland, had to say: "Of course Froome is a top class rider who has shown many times before what he is capable of at this level. We are always looking to strengthen our squad, especially with riders from nations as close to us as Great Britain, so naturally we've been looking at him. He is definitely an option for us, allthough he's only one of many, and not our primary target."
Meanwhile Alakagom, manager of Quickstep, said the following: "It depends how Quickstep transfers go. We'll need a hilly leader in PT for sure so if things in transfers plan out that we acquire another puncheur then most definitely Quickstep would be happy for Froome to talk with BoI. It's lots of ifs though."
Ryan Mullen is the only rider we are definitely not going to sell, unless you come in offering a 1-1 swap with Sam Bewley. He's the biggest Irish talent around, and should already be a decent TTT domestique this season. We look forward to see him ride in our colours for many years to come!
Most Likely Staying
Connor McConvey
74 MO, 73 HI
60.000 €
Peter Hawkins
76 SP
50.000 €
Ciaran Kelly
73 HI, 70 MO
50.000 €
Adam Petrie-Armstrong
75 FL, 83 FIG
50.000 €
Paidi O'Brien
70 HI
50.000 €
This is our Irish core, and we are happy to keep them all for the moment. They should prove to be decent assets for a PCT team, so there wasn't much debate wether we should re-sign them for (close to) minimum wage. Should a team come in with a decent offer on any of these we will definitely consider it.
A Little Less Likely Staying
Nic Hamilton
72 COB, 71 HI, 75 FIG
50.000 €
Tim Gudsell
73 TT, 73 PRO, 72 SP, 77 ACC
50.000 €
These are our non Irish domestiques. While they are still decent, we will need some better ones too, so might sell these to finance that. If you're interested in either, do feel free to drop me a PM once transfers start.
Staying // In need of a PT loan
Sam Harrison
76 SP, 79 ACC, 72 TT, 72 PRO, 72 COB
100.000 €
Tobyn Horton
74 SP, 80 ACC, 70 COB
60.000 €
Kevin Barclay
73 SP, 79 ACC, 75 FIG
50.000 €
These guys probably won't be sold, but could very much use a PT loan. Especially Harrison should be quite useful at that level. We could take on riders from PT teams in exchange.
The Dilemma Of The Leaders
Jose Mendes
78 HI
120.000 €
Damion Drapac
80 SP, 79 ACC
80.000 €
Well, what now? They were great for us at CT level, and could do well as superdomestique and leadout at PCT level. But equally, they'd be great for any (new) CT team looking to challenge for promotion. We're 50/50 between selling and keeping, so if you make a good offer, either of those could well be yours!
So yeah, the HQ has gone appalingly quiet since the start of the season, so much that I won't even pretend I can catch up on all of that. What I will do, however, is do some basic updates on how the team has been doing and how the future might look for us. So here we go, first up are the results:
So there we are, our first season in PCT and second in the MG is over. Naturally, not everything could go to plan over the course of a whole season, but in general we can be quite happy with a 12th place finish, the highest ranked team from the class of 2014 after high-flying Evonik. Our goal at the start of the season was a Top 15 finish, which was duly achieved by over 400 points. In the end this season was exactly what we had hoped for after promotion was confirmed at the end of last seasn - we established ourselves as a worthy PCT team and built a solid base from which we can hopefully challenge for a top ten finish next year, which seems just one additional leader away.
And here we go, the individual rankings. Of course one name immediately stands out - Jay "Macca" McCarthy. Racking up a total of four wins (one stage, three classics) and coming agonisingly close to 1000 points, he was our standout performer for sure this season. He scored 43% of our points this season, and outscored the bottom three teams completely.
Our two-leader pattern from last year continues (interestingly, in both years one was Iberian and one was Australian), as Florentino Marquez was our second rider in the top 25. Allthough the influx in climbers at this level meant he didn't have a hope of defending his individual title, he still chipped in nicely, scoring more than a quarter of our points.
Those two are the only riders in the top 100, something we definitely must improve on if we want to push for a higher position next season. Rafael Serrano and fan favourite Sam Bennett are the only other riders to score over 100 points, but thankfully a host of domestiques scored nice additional points to keep us going.
Wins
Race
Stage
Rider
Tour Down Under
6
Nic Hamilton
Volta a Catalunya
2
Rafael Serrano
Scandinavian Open Road Race
-
Jay McCarthy
Tour d'Andorra
2
Florentino Marquez
Tour of Bulgaria
GC
Florentino Marquez
Int. Österreichrundfahrt
3
Sam Bennett
Tour of Britain
4
Jay McCarthy
Milano - Torino
-
Jay McCarthy
Japan Cup
-
Jay McCarthy
9 wins in total this season, four less than last year. Of course that is still an excellent win tally, and has been the cause of much delight not just to me, but to all Irish cycling fans throughout the year.
Our top performer was of course Jay McCarthy, who won the last two classics he entered in an amazing late season show of form. He also previously won HC Scandinavian Open Road Race and a stage at one of our home races, the Tour of Britain.
Besides him, our Spaniards have been very active, with Florentino Marquez winning a stage in Andorra and the GC in Bulgaria, while Rafael Serrano won the second stage of our goal race in Catalunya with Marquez making it a 1-2 on the day.
Other than that, Sam Bennett showed what we signed him for with a magnificent sprint victory in Austria, whereas Nic Hamilton got our first win of the season from the breakaway in the Tour Down Under.
Our full palmares can be found in post #5 of our HQ.
Goals
WIN: Sean Kelly Classic
I suppose it was to be expected, but for the second year in a row we failed our win goal here. Jay McCarthy came reasonably close, finishing 4th, but in the end this was always going to be the toughest goal, so coming as close as we did is a good enough result.
You can't say he didn't put up a fight, but ultimatively he fell short.
Top 5: Tour of Catalunya
Given the influx in climbing strength in the division, we weren't overly confident going in to this race, but step up Florentino Marquez. After already losing 20 seconds in the prologue, he knew he needed to be active. On stage 2 already, he was just that, finishing second behind teammate Rafael Serrano to jump up to 5th in the GC. He fought on valiantly, but after dropping down to 6th, nearly a minute behind Nepomnyachsniy after the TT, it looked like he would just miss out. He never gave up though, and as he broke clear in a small group without Nepomnyachsniy on the final stage, he knew he would do it. He eventually came in 1'45" behind stage winner Kudus, which was enough to take 5th with half a minute to spare on Kwiatkowski.
Serrano wins stage two while Marquez leads the peleton
Top 5: Tour of the Czech Republic
A slightly out of form looking McCarthy eventually had no problems finishing on the podium in what was a weird race. With breakaways dominating, consistency was key, and so finishing between 4th and 10th on every stage was enough to clinch our goal in an unspectacular fashion.
McCarthy leading the peleton sprint on stage one
Top 10: Japan Cup
The last goal of the season was also arguably our best, with McCarthy winning after a massive attack from 13km out. It was soon evident he was giving it his absolute everything, and while it was awfully close at the end, he just proved too strong for the rest. Fantastic race from our team leader!
A great end to our season!
Top 15: Team Standings
As already said above, we didn't have too many problems with this one. We looked likely to achieve this from day one, and McCarthy's fantastic end of season push secured it for us completely. We selected this goal at the start of the season as it represented what we wanted our team to be - a good, solid PCT outfit with a basis to push on from. We are certainly just that now and have all possibilities to make next season one to remember!
Results like McCarthy's win at Milano - Torino helped us to finish 12th
4 out of 5 goals shows how much of a great season it has been for you! Mid table in PCT is nice return for your first season in the division. McCarthy was the stand out man for Irish Rovers
the_hoyle wrote:
4 out of 5 goals shows how much of a great season it has been for you! Mid table in PCT is nice return for your first season in the division. McCarthy was the stand out man for Irish Rovers
Yeah the goals were particularly pleasing, allthough admittedly they weren't exactly the toughest either. And mid table is exactly what we aimed for, so I'm quite happy we achieved that so easily. McCarthy really had a fantastic season for us, so hopefully he can repeat that next year too.
As said by the_hoyle nice getting 4/5 goals!
And Jay leading your team to a solid upper half in the standings.
A bit sad seeing you won in our home race instead of us but, honestly we do not have anyone really strong enough on the hills to win that race.
We have to be satisfied with a 3rd instead
Congratulations on a successful first year in PCT! Enjoyed seeing McCarthy rack up some decent results during the season. Also, nice goal completion rate, too! 4/5 should net you a nice bonus come transfer time.
Bank of Ireland Banking
gapyear.com Travel Network 
Triple J Radio
Nic Hamilton
Volta a Catalunya
Scandinavian Open Road Race
Tour d'Andorra
Tour of Bulgaria
Int. Österreichrundfahrt
Milano - Torino
Japan Cup
Corsica International
Nelspruit Classic
Vuelta al Tachira
Tour of Eritrea
Tour of the Czech Republic
Colombian Ventoux
Tour de Romandie
Tour of Norway
Baltic Chain Tour
Martin Puusepp
Interlagos GP
Dutch Food Valley Classic
