TRINITY confirmed their current ascendancy in open eights rowing on Saturday with a comfortable win over main rivals Neptune.

The seeded favourites, Trinity began the 4,000 metre run from O'Connell Bridge having already left the opposition cold: their extended warm up session delayed the start of the event by 15 minutes. However, pre race brinkmanship soon gave way to another demonstration of Trinity's present form.

Trinity quickly settled to a constant 34 strokes a minute, holding off the early challenge of Neptune who started 10 seconds behind. By the second half of the course, Neptune's early rate of 40 strokes a minute had failed to make any significant inroads into the lead and they were beginning to fall off the pace.

At Heuston Bridge, Neptune were two seconds down on Trinity and by the finish line, at Islandbridge, the margin had widened to almost eight seconds. Trinity's time of 11 minutes 44 seconds gives an indication of the strength of their run.

"It was dictated by some degree by Neptune," said Trinity coach Nick Dunlop of his crew's tactics. When they went off directly be hind us we had to respond and absorb their challenge. They gained something on us at the start, but fortunately we didn't let them develop the advantage."

Having only narrowly lost to Trinity in Galway the previous week, Dunlop's opposite number, Peter Buckley, was more philosophical: "The plan was to close them from the start and keep the pressure on. It just took too much out of them and we were losing it from Heuston Bridge - it was just a bad row and you have them now and again."

In the junior eights, Portora reversed an earlier defeat on the Corrib by coming through on the Liffey in 13.23.32, seconds ahead of St Joseph's College, Galway.

The oversea's challenge expected in the open women's eights made less of an impact. The University of Wales, Cardiff, crew were carrying their Welsh league crown on fragile morning after heads, and their push against the UCD women never materialised. Cardiff trailed in second, a minute behind UCD. However, underlining the gulf in Irish women's eights competition, third placed Commercial were two minutes behind the winners.

UCD also took novice eights honours in a preview of the colours match in a fortnight's time. Suffering from seat problems, the UCD boat managed to fend off a late surge from Trinity, with less than four seconds separating the crews.