James McIlroy competes in this weekend's British trials

James McIlroy produced an impressive run when getting close to the World Championship 800 metre standard in Germany on Saturday.

McIlroy clocked 1:46.28 when left him in fifth place - under a second behind Moroccan winner Kalid Tighazouine (1:45.32).

Those also ahead of the Northern Ireland runner were Sweden's Rizka Dirsche (1:45.45) Frenchman Jimmy Lomba (1:46.03) and South Africa's Werner Botha (1:46.24).

The performance should give McIlroy encouragement for this weekend's British World Championships trials when his main rival is likely to be Neil Speaight who bettered 1:46 earlier this season.

McIlroy was competing in the same meeting at Cuxhaven when Gareth Turnbull set a new 1500m personal best of 3:36.60.

Dermot Donnelly took seventh in the 3000m in 8:07.46 which was won by Australia's Yousef Abdi (7:54.31) while Kelly McNeice was fourth in the women's 800m (2:04.65).

Donnelly's Irish rival Robert Connolly took a bronze medal in the 5000m at the European U23 Championships in Poland on Sunday.

Connolly clocked 14:03.75 which left him behind Britons Chris Thompson and Mohamed Farah.

Mark Kenneally finished sixth in the same race in 14:13.24.

Derval O'Rourke: Broke the 13-second barrier

Arguably more impressive than Connolly's medal performance was Derval O'Rourke's sub-13 second clocking in the women's 100m hurdles final where she took fourth place.

O'Rourke clocked 12.96 seconds which cut .20 off her personal best set in qualifying and bettered Susan Smith's national record of 13.12.

Despite missing out on a medal, O'Rourke had the consolation of running the World and Olympic A Standard.

Paul Hession bettered 21 seconds in the 200m for the first time when taking a fine fifth in the final in 20.86.

David McCarthy ran a personal best of 46.05 to qualify for the final of the 400m where he finished sixth with another strong effort of 46.26.

Kilkenny man Adrian O'Dwyer had a first-time clearance at 2.21m to make the final of the high jump.

In the final his best of 2.18m was good enough for 8th place.

Meanwhile, organisers of the North Down Games on 1 August have confirmed that Commonwealth and European gold medallist Steve Backley will compete at the event.