Trinity favourites against Queen's despite changes

ROWING:Trinity's men's senior eight head into tomorrow's Lomac Tiles University Boat Race in Belfast with the luxury of trying out a few seat changes in their boat and still knowing they will be firm favourites to beat Queen's University.

There are three changes from the crew which won much as they liked at Metropolitan Regatta in Blessington last weekend: Gavin Doherty, Dave Cummins and Rob Swift replace Ed Roffe Silvester, Seán Osborne and Rory Horner, who has exams.

Trinity coach Mark Pattison has been starved of meaningful competition as his charges prepare for Henley Royal Regatta, and he revealed yesterday he is looking to put an "all-star" eight together to give his crew a proper test of their worth.

Tomorrow's action on the Lagan also features senior women and novice races.

The Ireland elite squad is based at the other end of the country, in the National Rowing Centre in Cork, in the run-up to the second World Cup Regatta in Amsterdam in two weeks' time.

Ireland coach Harald Jahrling was generally positive yesterday in analysing the results from the first World Cup in Linz.

The Ireland lightweight women's double scull performed poorly, however, in only finishing sixth in their B Final, and Jahrling is still looking for answers.

"We're a little frazzled over what happened," he admitted.

Orlagh Duddy, who is the reserve for this boat, did extraordinarily well to finish fifth in the A Final of the lightweight single scull in her first World Cup regatta. But Jahrling said there was no prospect of Duddy coming into the double at the moment.

The women's heavyweight double will not, however, be going to Amsterdam. Jahrling said that an injury to Helen Walshe has ruled her out. Her partner in the double in Linz, Caroline Ryan, will go to Amsterdam as a single sculler.

The men's heavyweight four are continuing to improve. Their next big target is to make the breakthrough to the to the top six in the world.

"I'm quite optimistic they can do it," said Jahrling yesterday.

The Britain heavyweight four extended their unbeaten run to 27 races at Linz, a remarkable record. They were one of four gold medallists for Britain, which won the overall prize at Linz.

There was a strong Irish tinge to the success: Alan Campbell took silver in the single scull and fellow Coleraine man Richard Chambers teamed up with former Ireland international James Lindsay-Fynn in the lightweight four which took bronze - a big breakthrough at this level for Britain.

London proved a good hunting ground for University of Limerick recently, as their novice four won at Metropolitan Regatta.

There will be action closer to home this weekend, at Castleconnell.