ROWING: Another remarkable weekend for Irish rowing. The lightweight four of Gearóid Towey, Eugene Coakley, Richard Archibald and Paul Griffin took silver behind the host country at the World Cup regatta in Munich on Saturday - and then barely took time out before packing it all away and targeting further improvement.

Towey had come into this crew only in the trials, replacing the injured Tim Harnedy, so the four had never competed as a unit before this event, yet they won their heat and semi-final here.

Germany also had one change from last season - Joel El-Qualquili coming in for Mattias Veit - but they had a recent victory over the world champions France in Duisburg under their belt, and this may have been decisive as they held off the Irish by less than half a second after a stirring battle.

Towey saw the test as the valuable part: "It's great to come away from something like this - a World Cup - knowing you're on the pace. That's the main thing. Even if we came, like, sixth today we'd know that we were there or thereabouts for the World Championships."

There are two more World Cup regattas, in Poznan next month and Lucerne in July, before the World Championships in Eton in August.

Ireland's three races here had seen them row in different ways, and learn as they went. But while the crew were generally happy with their effort on Saturday "it wasn't as good as we wanted to be," said Towey.

Griffin, the fiercely determined strokeman, echoed the point: "What every other nation does is what we do - we get faster progressively throughout the season. That's our aim."

Towey's recent attempt to row the Atlantic was hardly standard preparation for an intense season, and Coakley took the chance to rib his fellow Corkman: "Gags has only been doing a lot of endurance work over the winter. He has no speed-work done yet."

The crew had to face down an early challenge by Britain on Saturday but had put that behind them by the time they went one-on-one with the Germans.

"I was confident we would go through them (Britain) in the end," said Archibald, who calls the pushes in the boat.

However, the biggest success story of the Britain team here was cheering on the men in green.

Alan Campbell (23) caused the shock of the regatta by winning his four races and going all the way to gold in his first appearance at this level in a single scull. In the final he brushed aside the Olympic champion Olaf Tufte, who finished fourth, and found amazing reserves to hold off a late push by local hero Marcel Hacker - a 2002 world champion.

Campbell, like Archibald, hails from Coleraine and went to the same school, Coleraine Academical Institution, but he is based in England, having joined the British army. He took up serious rowing when he came under the influence of coach Bill Barry at Tideway Scullers.

His progress here was followed closely at home.

"I've had great support from Bill (Barry), my mum and dad - I love them - and the beautiful people of Coleraine . . . I've got a lot of supporters there - Bann Boat Club and Coleraine Old Boys' Rowing Association (Cobra). I've had great support - text messages. And the phone's not stopped ringing."

Unprompted, he segues straight into admiration for the Ireland crew due to take to the water soon after him: "We've got Richard (Archibald) in the lightweight four. They're going to win, so they are. My support is behind them all the way. We (the Britain team) have our own boys in there as well. But I've gone for the Coleraine boys."

Where did he find the strength to hold off Hacker?

"I don't know. I think it's just with determination everything else comes."

Barry has Irish links of his own - his father, Lou, coached Garda in the 1970s - and now he leans in to comment, "It's the Irish spirit."

Earlier in the day at Munich, the Ireland men's four had finished a close third in their B Final, and ninth overall. Italy's second crew took an early lead and held on to win, but the Irish led the chase in the closing stages, only to be edged out by .32 of a second by the Czech Republic.

Seán Jacob, number two in the Ireland boat, pointed out the result mirrored that in the World Championships last year, when the Italians were seventh, the Czechs eighth and Ireland 10th.

"We've changed our crew in the meantime and we haven't really lost a lot of speed with that change. That's positive from our point of view."

He said the new man in the boat, Con Collis, had "fitted well into the group" and they had improved with each race.

They go on to Poznan next month and Jacob thinks they may do well with the help of coach Harald Jahrling.

"We go over races in detail. We're very thorough in our debriefings. We talk before and after every race with the coach and he's quite good at speaking his mind," said Collis.