A fascinating 8OO metres final is in prospect in the National Indoor Championships at Nenagh over the weekend, following David Matthews's decision to oppose his UCD clubmate, James Nolan.

After choosing to avoid each other last week when Nolan went to Birmingham to defend his British title and Matthews opting for an international meeting at Ghent, they are now on course for a duel which should reveal much.

On the basis of last week's figures, Matthews deserves to rate as a marginal favourite but given that Nolan was involved in championship competition in Birmingham, that may be misleading.

That's just one of the head to head affairs which promise to elevate the championships, sponsored by TRBDI, to special significance. Another is the high jump where the meeting of Mark Mandy and Antoine Burke gives promise of some of the sharpest domestic competition in this event, in years.

Mandy, the national record holder at 2.25 metres (7ft 4 1/2in) would ordinarily, be expected to win but the ratings were sharply revised after Burke, against all expectations finished ahead of him with a career best jump of 2.24 metres in Birmingham.

Gary Ryan's impressive rate of development, first manifested in the Atlanta Olympics, was again in evidence in the World Championships in Athens. Since then he has produced some exciting runs on the boards but he now faces a potentially dangerous challenge from Limerick's Tom Comyns.

Comyns, who trains with Ryan, trimmed his career best figures to 21.32 secs in Birmingham but he still has some improvement to find to approach Ryan's national record of 21.13 secs.

Neil Ryan of Nenagh Olympics who ran 6.89 secs for the 60 metres in the British championships, will be expected to win this event tomorrow in the face of ambitious challenges from Kevin Cogley, David Power and John McAdory.

Lena Barry, whose silver medal placing in the British 60 metres championship, represented a fine achievement, has had her task minimised by the withdrawal of Aoife Hearne from the Nenagh programme but she still needs to run well to beat Emily Meagher of Kilkenny and Niamh McGlynn of West Dublin.

Barry also runs in the 200 metres but she will be doing exceptionally well to finish in front of the Dubliner, Ciara Sheehy.

The preliminaries of the women's 800 metres promise some fine entertainment with Pauline Quinn, Maura Prendiville and Freda Davoren all looking for big runs.