ROWING NEWS:IT TAKES courage and sense of purpose for an eight to come from behind and pass a rival in top-class two-boat racing. Queen's University's A crew showed that yesterday when beating Brock University of Canada in the quarter-finals of the Temple Cup at Henley.

The win was a fillip for the Irish on a day when eight crews met their match. In today’s semi-finals, UCD in the Prince Albert for student coxed fours and Queen’s A in the Temple for student eights will be the only Irish-based competitors. Dubliner Martin Walsh will stroke the big and ambitious Oxford Brookes/Oxford University composite in the Ladies’ Plate.

Brock passed Queen’s A early and held the advantage until the three-quarter mile mark, where Queen’s mounted the decisive push.

Roared on by cox Hugh Rhys-Davies, who is a trained pilot, they passed the Canadians and then stayed in front to the finish. They won by three-quarters of a length.

The Queen’s B crew made their exit to ASR Nereus of the Netherlands, finding the slicker Dutch crew too hard to handle.

In the race directly before the Queen’s-Brock battle, Harvard’s Ladies’ Plate crew beat NUIG on the first outing for both. Harvard are one of the strongest of Henley competitors and NUIG could not catch them once they had taken the lead.

In the Thames Cup for club eights, Galway could not stop the march of 1829 Club, a Cambridge and Oxford old boys’ crew.