Rowing/National Championships: A powerful performance by a composite crew from NUIG and Galway Rowing Club took the men's senior eights title west for the first time in four years at the National Championships at Inniscarra Lake in Cork on Saturday.
For three years, NUIG had targeted "the big pot" only to lose out to the experience of Commercial of Dublin, but after a turbulent year in which they spent some time suspended, the college teamed up with their neighbours and produced a crew stroked by Paul Giblin which had the look of hungry young men with a point to prove.
The winners had an average age in the mid 20s, while the mean age of Commercial's own composite with Shannon and Fermoy was the wrong side of 30. They fought gamely but unsuccessfully to overcome a bad start, and were still only two seconds behind at the finish line after a good race.
Their chances were not helped by a crash before the race. As they did warm-up routines they ran bow-to-bow into the Commercial junior eight, and were forced to use a boat borrowed at the last minute. The incident led to the postponement of the senior and junior eights races until late in the evening.
The junior crew were forced to replace the injured Mark Butcher with Kevin Clarke, who ran from the end of the junior single scull race and climbed into the boat just before it left the slip. They finished second to St Michael's.
Kenny McDonald, who had to jump out of the bow of the senior boat as it ploughed into the junior eight, was diplomatic in his reading of the effect of the crash on the senior final.
"It did have a little bit of an influence in that we were a scratch crew sitting into a new boat straight before the race. But fair dues to NUIG, they are a quality crew and it was going to be nip and tuck between the two of us."
John Forde of Galway Rowing Club had crowned a regatta in which he had already won the senior pairs and fours titles, and the Giblin family also had a good day. Paul's sister Anne-Marie had earlier helped NUIG to win the women's novice eight title, and Paul had stroked the club's senior coxed four to a good win.
Bridging gaps was one of the themes of the championships. The win for St Michael's in the junior eight was the first since 1993, when Sam Lynch - who was there to cheer them on - was in the boat. Coláiste Iognáid won the women's equivalent, bridging a gap to 1994, when Neasa Folan, now their coach, was in the boat.
Folan (29) has just been appointed apprentice coach to the Ireland team for the next 18 months, quitting her job as an IT product manager so that she can learn from the successful team of Harald Jahrling and Debbie Fox.
Two of the men who won senior titles also had Jahrling on their minds. Jonny Devitt's win in the senior double scull, where he teamed up with Eoghan Garvey, brought him his first senior title after a season when he was cut from the Ireland squad. He is now on a mission to prove the Ireland coach wrong.
"I gave up my job; I put my life on hold - and Jahrling told me to give up (rowing)," the 29-year old said. "I don't think it's a good thing for a coach to tell someone to give up. Ever."
Jahrling did say that he would welcome Devitt proving him wrong, and the UCD man who remortgaged his house to finance his dream will throw himself back into the fray in the season ahead. "I plan on making him eat those words. Nothing would give me greater pleasure."
For the UCD senior women's eight the aim of the weekend was more immediate. They again proved themselves the best women's crew in Ireland with their fourth successive title, and the four drawn from the eight won the coxless fours title.
The men's intermediate eight provided one of the contests of the championships. Belfast Rowing Club, with the crew which won through to the semi-finals at Henley Royal Regatta, looked set for victory as they swept past the boathouse in the lead, but Trinity chased them down and beat them in a thrilling finish.
