AFTER another great day in the FBD Milk Ras yesterday, from Buncrana to Donegal Town, Marcus Lemm of Germany plunged out of contention, Peter Daly of the Ireland team deservedly won the stage and Tommy Evans took over the lead. His Derry team mate, David McCann, is in second place.

At the end of the 101 mile stage, Daly reversed the placings with his previous day's conqueror, Jeff Wright of the Britain North East squad. And in a reshuffle of the overall positions, Daly is up to fourth.

With 103 miles to Newry today and then the final 75 miles to the finish in Swords tomorrow, Evans, from Banbridge, leads by a minute and 48 seconds from McCann.

Englishman Ben Luckwell, who is riding as an individual and was fined and penalised for collusion with the Derry selection after the first four stages, is third at 2:51. Daly is another 12 seconds in arrears.

The inexperience of 18 year old Lemm, who tried to cope with a difficult situation on such a testing stage, became obvious early on, and although he fought his way back at 40 miles after slipping behind, he lost out again and eventually came in with a group 15 minutes and 42 seconds behind Daly. He has dropped to 17th overall at 14:43.

Evans, winner of the Junior Tour in 1991, led the Ras at the end of the first day two years ago. He also held the leader's jersey in the Tour of the North at Easter. He said after winning stage four into Castlebar that he had realised an ambition, but now he has a great chance of registering his biggest triumph.

Daly's consistency was rewarded with an overdue stage win. He was fifth on the opening stage and, after finishing fourth the next day, took the overall lead. He was 22nd, 18th and third, and was very disappointed when he was outsprinted by Wright into Buncrana on Thursday. Nobody has been at the front of the race as often as the Kilkenny man and Wright admitted after the finish yesterday that Daly was too strong in the end.

It was a rare stage win for Alasdair MacLennan's Ireland team. Although he had the last three overall winners - Eamon Byrne, Declan Lonergan and Paul McQuaid - none of them were stage winners as well. Daly's success is only the third in four years for the team.

While the Derry team are in a sound position there is still a lot of racing to be done, and Daly, who won the Junior Tour in 1990 and has been racing in France in recent years, based at Tours, said: "It's not over for me until we get to Swords. I'll be giving it everything I have."

After some early breakaway attempts failed, a group of five were joined by another 22. And although Evans was there, Lemm missed the move and McCann was behind with the German. The gap went to two minutes before a furious chase brought Lemm up to the Evans group at 40 miles.

But the effort proved costly for Lemm as he was unable to stage a repeat when he found himself in arrears again approaching the Glengesh Pass, and on closing the gap he drifted into a deficit of nine minutes that continued to widen all the way to the end.

Up at the front Wright's chain broke just at the start of the steep section of Glengesh and he had to change onto a spare bike.

Up at the front Daly set the pace, and although Luckwell rejoined him before the top Daly went over from the Englishman with Denis O'Shea third.

With the help of his three teammates, Wright got back up to the front and, after he had beaten Daly for the Bogagah mountain prime, 74 miles, they pressed on. It was Wright ahead of Daly again at Bavin four miles later, but they had opened a gap of 50 seconds on a group of 13 with Luckwell doing most of the work leading then.

Evans was there in behind Luckwell, with Finn O'Sullivan also included, but McCann was with Scot Roddy Riddle almost four minutes behind.

Daly and Wright raced on through Killybegs with their lead at just over a minute. Approaching the finish Daly piled on the pressure and gained a few lengths on Wright which he maintained to the line at The Diamond in Donegal.

McCann set out as the most likely winner for the Derry team, but the pressure is now on the diminutive Evans and the battle will continue to rage as he tries to ward off his challengers over the final two days.