Irish riders Conn McDunphy and Liam O'Brien remain locked on time with the British overall leader Dom Jackson at the end of Saturday’s penultimate stage of the Rás Tailteann, with all three finishing in the main bunch on a tough hilly stage to Kildare town.
It was won by Tom Martin (Wheelbase-Cabtech-Castelli), who finished two seconds clear of fellow Briton Will Perrett (Spirit TBW Stuart Hall Cycling).
They and the Irishman Conal Scully (Dan Morrissey Primor by Pissei) broke clear with approximately 45km remaining, with Martin and Perrett staying clear to fight for the stage win.
"I'm really pleased to finally win a stage here. I’m made up," Martin said.
"I took my chance around 45km to go. Then two more lads came across, Will Perrett and another lad, and we rode pretty well together. I knew Will was dead keen on moving up the GC so I had that at the back of my mind and jumped him at 3km to go for a solo stage win."
The peloton finished 18 seconds back, keeping Jackson in yellow. He had a very nervous time inside the first ten kilometres of the 139.2km race from Horse and Jockey when defending champion Dillon Corkery bridged across to a six-man breakaway group including his Ireland teammate Dean Harvey and, collaborating well together, opened a gap of 1’40. This put Corkery into the provisional race lead.
"It wasn't really the plan, to be honest. We had a bit of a tactic in place, and it wasn't to happen that early on. But I kind of used the crosswind to my advantage at the beginning. I put it in the gutter, and nobody could follow.
"I got across to a group of five or six lads there. I had Dean in the move with me, Dean did all the driving all day. In fairness, the gap went out to 1’40. But I suppose when you've got 150 lads riding behind and you have got two or three lads who are willing to run the front, you are under a bit of pressure."
A furious chase behind saw the move finally hauled back inside the final 50km. Corkery was frustrated but also drew encouragement from it.
"I think we showed today that we've got the capabilities of going up the road and doing that again. So we'll do it again tomorrow, we are not finished."
The stage-winning move went clear soon after that recapture and resulted in Martin’s first-ever Rás stage win.
Jackson remains on the same overall time as stage 2 winner McDunphy and best young rider O’Brien, but remains in the yellow jersey by virtue of better accumulated stage placings.
"It was a really hard day today," Jackson said. "The moves that got away, some of them were actually really quite threatening. And it forced me and my teammates, and Skyline to work as well.
"It just gets to a point where you're absolutely spent, and then you just got to keep going because I'm loving every minute in this jersey, and I want to keep it for as long as I can. It's slowly killing me to do it, but I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it.
"It would mean everything to win this race."
What could be the closest-ever Rás sees Jackson, McDunphy and O’Brien level heading into the final stage.
O’Brien remains the best young rider in the race and said that he and the team would try again on Sunday.
He can take inspiration from last year, when Corkery started the final stage 19 seconds behind race leader Conor McGoldrick (UK: Richardsons Trek DAS) but got clear in a breakaway move and won overall.
"The way it finished the last year, anything can happen tomorrow," O’Brien said. "We still have two strong options there [in the overall standings] with myself and Dillon."
The final stage is a 155.6km race from Maynooth to Bective in Co Meath.
