"They were a better crew basically," said Andy Coleman with alarming honesty. Trinity's eight had just been beaten by Cambridge University at Henley Royal regatta on Saturday and none of the crew were offering excuses.

They might have. This Cambridge crew is effectively the second in line to the Cambridge crew which, so convincingly, won the Boat Race. They had to battle to be allowed to take part in the Temple Challenge Cup for non-international college crews, and yesterday they won it with a 3 1/2 length win over Imperial College.

On Saturday Trinity opened up at a furious pace, rating 46 strokes per minute; but Cambridge matched them and moved ahead early on. They built up a three-length lead after a mile, and stretched it to 31/2 lengths before giving way a little to win by 2 3/4 lengths.

The Trinity strategy had been to take the lead early - "We had been getting ahead in all the other races here" explained stroke James Lupton - but once this idea failed we were in trouble. Bruce Cummings, the number three man in the winning crew, comes from Cookstown in Tyrone, and bowman Ronan Cantwell's father is from Galway.

Saturday and Sunday were dull but warm days at Henley in contrast to the high summer conditions on Friday. Although no Irish crew made the final day, there is some consolation in Molesey's victory over Crabtree in the Thames Cup. Garda had given Molesey a race on Thursday, only losing by a length and a quarter. British star Steve Redgrave clinched his 18th Henley title as his coxless four retained the Stewards' Challenge Cup, but the British national eight lost narrowly to the German national eight in the final of the Grand Challenge Cup.

Another German, Marcel Hacker, proved to be the surprise of the weekend, beating Greg Searle in the semi-final of the Diamond Sculls and taking the title by vanquishing defending champion Jamie Koven yesterday.