TRINITY'S weekend in the North should have rekindled some fire under a title race that has been sliding towards an inevitable conclusion. Instead, their success in the senior eights will probably prove to be more flash in the pan than trail blazing after two unconvincing wins over relatively moderate opposition.

The return to Castlewellan for Queen's regatta, the scene of last year's defeat which turned the tide against Trinity, was at least spared some of the trauma by the absence of championship favourites, Neptune. The one length victory at the warm up University Championships, though, was hard won and Saturday's final had deja vu written all over it.

In the Colours race UCD took an early lead and were defending a canvass into the second half of the course when Trinity found their top gear and began pulling them back. In a repeat of their last encounter, Trinity won the half a length verdict against an essentially senior three eight.