Draw does no favours for lightweight four

ROWING/World Cup regatta:Ireland's lightweight four, in need of a break after struggling in pre-season, have got a horrible draw for today's heats of the first World Cup Regatta in Linz in Austria. They face world champions China, with only one crew to go directly to tomorrow's semi-finals and the rest facing into late-evening repechages.

China were Ireland's nemesis last year. The Irish won the 2006 World Cup series, in which points are awarded through the series of three regattas, but their season took a huge hit when a resurgent China beat them in the heats of the World Championships in Eton.

The Irish showed great grit to make the finals through the repechage route and take a bronze behind China and France.

This season, however, they have struggled to replace Gearóid Towey. Cathal Moynihan, who will fill the bow seat in today's heat (12.54 Irish time) is the second man to try to fill Towey's shoes. Richard Coakley was chosen initially, but the crew did poorly in a regatta in Essen in Germany last month.

Tim Harnedy, who has been recovering from an ankle injury, will join the Ireland squad in training next weekend, but yesterday he poured cold water on any idea he might slot into the lightweight four in the short term. "I don't think I'll be competing before the World Championships," he said.

Ireland have eight crews in action today, six of them in Olympic disciplines. The men's heavyweight four, who finished seventh at the World Championships, have had an excellent run-up to this event and coach Harald Jahrling has spoken of being hopeful that they would make the A final.

But they also have an awful draw - with only one crew to go through the heat (11.12), Ireland must beat the Netherlands, who took bronze at Eton.

The two Olympic women's crews, the lightweight and heavyweight doubles, look much more likely to make it from their heats. However, because of the big entry in their class, the lightweight boat of Sinead Jennings and Niamh Ni Cheilleachair will need to hurdle the further obstacle of a quarter-final.

Back in Ireland, tomorrow's Metropolitan Regatta at Blessington will buck the trend of thin competition in the senior eight with an entry of six crews.

Trinity coach Mark Pattison has entered three boats, and Commercial, St Michael's and Belfast Rowing Club have one each. Pattison has to contend with putting crews together in the midst of exam season - which is also affecting Commercial - and the Trinity coach is concentrating on this class, taking his top two senior crews and a batch made up mostly of novices and letting them fight it out.

WORLD CUP REGATTA (Linz, Austria) - Draw for today's heats (Irish interest, times Irish) 7am - Lightweight Women's Single Scull: Turkey, Hong Kong, Spain, Austria, Finland, Ireland (Orlagh Duddy) (First two directly to semi-final A/B) 7.18 - Lightweight Men's Single Scull: Netherlands Two, Turkey Two, Greece, Austria, China, Ireland (Richard Coakley) (First directly to semi-final A/B) 9.0 - Men's Single Scull: Switzerland Two, Sweden One, Ireland (Sean Jacob), Croatia (First directly to semi-final A/B/C). 10.30 - Women's Double Scull: Cuba, Finland, Germany Two, China One, Ireland (H Walshe, C Ryan) (First two directly to semi-finals A/B) 11.12 - Men's Four: Poland, Italy Two, The Netherlands, Ireland (S O'Neill, C Folan, S Casey, A Martin), Portugal, Germany Two (First directly to semi-final A/B) 11.48 - Lightweight Women's Double Scull: Britain Two, China Three, Ireland (S Jennings, N Ni Cheilleachair), Sweden (First three to quarter-finals) 12.54 - Lightweight Men's Four: Austria, Spain, China, Ireland, Greece (First directly to semi-final A/B) 13.18 - Men's Quadruple Scull: Britain, Italy Two, Italy One, France, Ireland (J Wall, C Collis, P O'Brien, P Murray) (First two directly to semi-final A/B).