Boat Race blues for Walsh

ROWING:EVEN AS Ireland crews were coming together in splendid – if bitter – conditions at the National Rowing Centre in Cork, one of the country's top oarsmen was looking at how it fell apart for him on Saturday. "We couldn't kill them off. They smelled blood and took it."

Dubliner Martin Walsh was making no excuses the day after the Boat Race, in which his Oxford crew were beaten by one-and-a- third lengths by Cambridge after a tough battle down the four-and-a-quarter-mile course.

Oxford took the lead early and held it through halfway, but they could not burn off the light blues. Cambridge covered push after push, and then came through.

“We didn’t have the turn of speed. They had,” said Walsh.

He said Oxford paid for their lack of racing in the months when a number of events were cancelled. The crucial turn of speed was never needed in training, and, he mused, looking back he had never felt it there.

Before the race he had said this was his last shot at being an Oxford Blue, and his future lay away from the college. But “it was not nice to be devastated as a crew” and he is minded to try to give it another shot. “Thinking about it right now, I’m not ruling it out.”

His immediate plans, however, are to take a break. “I’m going home to Dublin to see the family for a little bit.”

The process of construction of the Ireland team was well under way on the final day of the National Trials yesterday. Several crews have to be finalised, but the shape of the teams for the season ahead is beginning to emerge.

At heavyweight, the experienced pair of Cormac Folan and Seán Jacob look set to represent Ireland at the first test of the year, in Duisburg next month. The under-23 lightweight pair of Anthony English and Peter Hanily are also likely to wear the Irish vest, depending on exams.

Three athletes have been selected for the Munich junior regatta in five weeks. Junior lead coach Derek Holland said Turlough Hughes, of King’s Hospital, and Shane O’Driscoll and Paul O’Donovan, of Skibbereen, would form combinations there.

This regatta will help decide whether Ireland crews are up to the standard for the World Junior Championships or the next step down, the Coupe de la Jeunesse.

The lightweight men’s and women’s programme could provide Ireland’s best hope of success this season. Four athletes trialled yesterday in the men’s lightweight programme. Cathal Moynihan, who is 29 and rowed for Ireland in Beijing, was alongside under-23 athletes Niall Kenny, Justin Ryan and Michael Maher in lightweight double sculls.

The lightweight women’s trial featured six: Siobhán McCrohan, Claire Lambe, Sarah Dolan, Sheila Clavin, Dympna Kelly and Siobhán Jacob.

The first Ireland team to go into action will consist of two adaptive crews at Varesi in Italy on May 1st and 2nd. Karol Doherty of City of Derry will compete in the arms-only men’s single, and there will also be an adaptive mixed four.