Lightweight four have another shot

ROWING NEWSHERE IT is at last: the chance for Ireland's lightweight four to put their awful performance in last year's World Championships behind them - and on the very same course.

The first World Cup regatta of the season, which begins today in Munich, offers different challenges to all seven Ireland crews, but the lightweight four know they will be the central attraction.

Last year the former shining lights of Irish rowing trailed in 12th at the World Championships - last in the B final, and a dispiriting single place off qualification for Beijing. Now with new coach John Holland in charge and Gearóid Towey back in the frame, they hope to bury that memory and clear the first hurdle on the way to the Games.

Their first target is to get one up on the other crews who will be fighting for the two remaining slots in Beijing come the Olympic Qualifier in Poland in June. Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain and Portugal are all present and correct in the big field. Holland will be disappointed if his crew do not send their rivals a message.

In what is a huge regatta - 840 competitors from 54 countries - this will be one of the hardest-fought classes. World champions Britain will do battle with Olympic champions Denmark. France, China and Italy will all have a cut. An A final place would be a remarkable achievement for Eugene Coakley, Towey, Richard Archibald and stroke Paul Griffin.

Harald Jahrling guided the lightweight four to World Championship medals in 2005 and 2006, but now has control over three heavyweight men's crews: the men's four, which qualified for Beijing in Munich last year; single sculler Seán Jacob; and an entirely new crew, the men's heavyweight pair of Jonno Devlin and Seán Casey.

The latter crew is the one which could set Irish pulses racing. It performed excellently at early-season regattas in Spain and Austria and is coming into a class where new crews predominate. It also has a most unusual genesis.

Casey is a Kerryman born and bred, but Devlin is of Northern Irish parentage and South African upbringing. He came to college in Oxford and spent years in the British system before switching to Jahrling's group last year.

If this seems a little like bed-hopping for rowers, meeting the man himself dispels the doubts about cynicism. He is straightforward about the reasons for the split from the Britain team - he was cut from the system - but the Irish connection was always strong.

His parents emigrated during the Troubles. "They moved in the '70s, because of the conflict with religion. My mum's Catholic and my dad's Protestant. So in the '70s that wasn't going to work. My parents always made sure I had a British and an Irish passport. They were quite wise, I suppose. I've had an Irish passport as long as I've had a British passport."

Jahrling has had some success with pairs rowing. He won two Olympic gold medals in coxed pairs with East Germany (1976 and 1980) and coached the Australian pair to silver at the 1996 Olympics. His initial aim for the Ireland crew is Olympic qualification in June, while the main target in Munich, he said yesterday, is to test themselves against other non-qualified crews, including Italy, Spain and China.

The four's performance will depend greatly on how well James Wall has recovered from his recent injury, while Seán Jacob is recovering from illness, and will not be back to his best, Jahrling said.

The Ireland team has reached this point in an unlikely way. Jahrling and Holland have been running parallel systems. Holland will put two lightweight double sculls on the water in addition to the lightweight four, but he has also taken on the guidance of a new women's double of Caroline Ryan and Sinéad Jennings. They are similar in disposition: unfailingly polite and pleasant, but with a sharp competitive edge. Holland admits that success for them would be a long shot.

Ireland team

Men

Four (J Wall, S O'Neill, C Folan, A Martin); Pair (J Devlin, S Casey);

Single Scull (S Jacob).

Lightweight Four (E Coakley, G Towey, R Archibald, P Griffin);

Lightweight Double Scull (R Coakley, C Moynihan).

Women

Double Scull (C Ryan, S Jennings). Lightweight Double Scull (O Duddy, N Ni Cheilleachair).