ROWING: THERE WAS a surge of emotion to match the surges on the water as Gráinne Mhaol/NUIG won the senior eights championship of Ireland at the National Rowing Centre in Cork yesterday.

“We did it as a tribute to Tom,” said cox Ruadhan Cooke, speaking of the long-time NUIG coach Tom Tuohy who died last year in his mid fifties, prompting a number of his protegees, including Cooke, to give it one last shot for their departed mentor.

Breege Tuohy, Tom’s widow, hugged the oarsmen. “He was there,” she said.

And the win was vintage NUIG under Tuohy. They slugged it out with Queen’s University until 1,250 metres in, then the call came to do it for Tom and they pushed into the lead.

When Queen’s came back strong with 250 metres left, Cooke called again and his crew met him with a tremendous surge which carried them to the line, 1.78 seconds ahead of their rivals.

It was a fitting finale to a wonderful three days racing at the Irish Championships.

Helen Walshe won an outstanding final of the women’s senior single scull.

Monika Dukarska, on a mission after dramatically falling in while just metres away from a win last year, swept into the lead in the final quarter and looked set to win. But Walshe kept coming and just pipped her on the line.

The margin in the women’s intermediate single scull was even tighter: Amy Bulman of UCD defeated Karen Corcoran-O’Hare of Shandon by just .34 of a second.

The men’s senior single sculls final was a very different race, as the ever-calm John Keohane proceeded to his first win in this event.

The 33-year-old only took up Olympic-class rowing at 24 and has continued to compete at coastal rowing – he headed off to take part in a coastal rowing event later in the day.

The victorious crew in the women’s senior eight final was a tribute to cross-Border relations.

The Queen’s University/Skibbereen combination moved sweetly down the water and won well.

Indeed it was a good weekend for college crews, for Skibbereen and for Northern Ireland clubs. Trinity rounded off a great campaign which had seen them take the men’s intermediate eight and four titles with a win in the women’s novice eight yesterday.

Skibbereen moved up to 136 titles, taking over in second overall behind Neptune.

The big wins for Northern crews yesterday came in junior pairs. Bann’s Brooke Edgar and Emily Hutchinson won a stirring battle with Muckross, while Portora’s Henry Millar and Lloyd Seaman took the men’s title with ease.

On Saturday the big story was another Bann junior pair.

Joel Cassells and Chris Black, both of whom are not long 18, won the senior pairs title, a fine boost as they prepare to launch a challenge for a junior pairs medal at the World Championships in Bulgaria next month.

A young woman who will also represent Ireland, Hilary Shinnick of Fermoy, won her second successive junior women’s single sculls’ title – and she is just 17.

The two most thrilling finishes of the day came in the men’s senior quadruple scull, where the composite of University of Limerick and Castleconnell beat Queen’s and in the women’s junior 18 eight, where Galway Rowing Club beat Muckross by coming from behind.

A good portion of Galway seemed to have relocated to the bank at the NRC. They went home hoarse and happy.