St Mary's Twickenham student Andy Vernon warmed-up for this month's European championships cross country trials in Liverpool with a comfortable win in the second of this season's London Colleges cross country league meetings, staged in drizzly and overcast conditions in Richmond Park last Wednesday.

Vernon, 23, who took the silver medal in last season's Euro under 23 championships in Brussels, will be battling for a senior team place in the trials at Liverpool's Sefton Park on November 28.

St Mary's runners dominated the two lap race and, at the end of the opening circuit five of the white and blue check-vested runners were at the head of the field with Vernon churning out the pace alongside team-mate Ash Harrell, the opening match winner at Parliament Hill Fields a fortnight earlier.

The two of them continued to run together on during the second half of the race but then Vernon did just enough to take the honours in the 5.4 miles race in 27 minutes 24 seconds, winning by 15m from Harrell (27:27) with two other St Mary's runners, Neil Phillips (27:30) and Steve Scullion (27:37) filling the next two places before Joe Morwood from St George's Hospital Medical School, Tooting, finished fifth in 28:10, one of the highest-ever placings achieved by a St George's runner.

Vernon confirmed he is back to full training seven days a week after recovering from a recent chest infection. "I just did enough to win today," he said.

He warmed up for the race by leading a squad of St Mary's runners on a 25 minute jog the three or so miles from Strawberry Hill, across Teddington Lock and through Ham Gate to the start near Kingston Gate - arriving just in time. And, as soon as the St Mary's runners had completed their race they were off again on a warm-down retracing their steps.

St Mary's sealed a comfortable team win with Ben Hunter and Mitch Goose, finishing together in 28:23, taking seventh and eighth places.

St Mary's emphasised their domination of the event as their B team of Tim Traynor (29:16) 16th, Stu Huntington (29:21) 17th, Ben Lindsay (29:28) 18th, Andrew Rooke (29:28) 19th, Davey Platt (29:51) 23rd and Simon Horsfield (29:55) 24th, packed solidly to take second team place with their C and D teams finishing fourth and seventh as St Mary's finished 22 runners in the top 36.

Their C team was David Fry (30:00) 26th, Carl Goose (30:03) 27th, Carl Bradbury (30:03) 28th, Oli Crux (30:10) 29th, Alex Flynn (30:18) 30th and Gavin Lewis (30:25) 31st.

Their D team was led in by Ronnie Sparke (30:25) 32nd, Omar Mansoor (30:33) 33rd and Sam Bradley (30:38) 34th with Ben Wallis (30:50) 36th.

Other St George's runners were Alex Smith (34:09) 60th and Andrew Deans (39:20) 104th.

Teams: 1 St Mary's 688; 2 St Mary's B 613; 3 Brunel 592; 4 St Mary's C 570; 5 University College 561; 6 Imperial College 556; 7 St Mary's D 534; 15= St George's, Tooting 256; 20 St Mary's E 191.

Standings after 2 matches: 1 St Mary's (holders) 1348; 2 Brunel 1271; 3= Imperial College & University College 1183; 5 Imperial College B 951; 6 King's College 935; 12 St Mary's B 613; 14 St Mary's C 570; 15 st Mary's D 534; 19 St George's 394; 23 St Mary's E 191.