Issue 99 - June 1997

Irish pot pourri

At O'Brien's Bridge it was bright sun and shirtsleeves for Limerick Regatta; a week later it was unbelievably freezing for Neptune Regatta at Islandbridge ­ I had to send an SOS home for warm clothes; and for Queen's at Castlewellan it poured all day, as wet a regatta as I can remember. It was also a crowded three weeks to start the year. Clearly clubs couldn't easily manage all three, so entries suffered. There's a need to put a coherent shape on the Irish regatta year.

Neptune's senior men only raced their own regatta, but won both halves of the draw in eights to make an all-Neptune final. Their first boat beat the seconds, who had been strengthened by the inclusion of three lightweight internationals. Neptune are going to be hard to match in the eight, although Trinity's senior four proved competitive enough against the best Neptune could put out. A Shannon/St. Michael's/ Cork composite eight won at O'Brien's Bridge beating St Michael's. Commercial's small boat men combined for an eights win at their own regatta, the second day of the Islandbridge weekend. And Trinity won twice at Castlewellan, taking UCD from behind each time, to win at the University Championship and Queen's regatta.

UCD blew their chance to take the Wylie Cup for the first time since 1991 by bureaucratic bungling; they substituted more than half of their winning novice eight, and indeed didn't declare any substitutions at all. Then two hours later the same happened in the intermediate race. Those two wins would have won UCD the Wylie Cup ­ instead they shot themselves in both feet. And Trinity came through in the senior eights to take the cup.

Lar Collins, the Irish sculling champion, won the first senior sculling races at Limerick and Neptune ­ but he was beaten by his Commercial clubmate, Neal Byrne, at Commercial Regatta. John Armstrong (Lady Victoria) won single and double at Queen's, partnered in the double by Brendan Dolan (Neptune), back after an operation on his back in February. There's an appetite for a quad among the top lightweight scullers after the fourth place in Strathclyde after a week together last year. Niall O'Toole and Gearoid Towey both are focussed on the singles berth, but that still leaves plenty for an outstanding quad ­ they'd like a go at Henley, but that may depend on the squad management relaxing its opposition to Henley as a preparation for international rowing.

Neptune's women ran up a flag early in the year, and clearly have supplanted UCDLBC as the top women's contenders for the year, winning eights at Limerick, Neptune and Commercial, and a couple of fours races for good measure.

© Copyright REGATTA Online, 1997.