I think part of the 'problem' with our 'strength' in cross country is that in years gone by all our middle distance and long distance track runners ran on the country in the winter as part of their training regime. The likes of Peter Elliot, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Tim Hutchins etc were all either winners or very highly placed in the National and/or Inter Counties. Nowadays our middle distance athletes are often off on warm weather training/altitude training and for want of a better word dont seem to want to 'slog' it out on the country.

A cynic might say they'd rather spend a couple of weeks in Australia/ South Africa in the sun rather than running through 9 miles of mud in the National!!!