TRINITY'S senior eight provided the final polish; but it was a tightly contested intermediate eights race that settled the Men's University championships and returned the Wylie Cup to the Queen's trophy room yesterday after a 17 year absence.

The Queen's intermediates started their race knowing that championship ambitions rested on their shoulders since one of the two required wins had already been notched up by the novices. In the event, they kept their composure and added to their early season honours.

Although not the fastest off the start, Queen's quickly found their rhythm, racing at 37 strokes a minute, and finished a length in front of UCD and another canvas ahead of Trinity.

"We had a good start; but we were taken off the line by UCD by a length," said Queen's stroke Rory Mulcahy, afterwards. "When we settled down into a rhythm we were making up a foot with every stroke, the pushers were working and by the time web hit rough water in the final 250 metres, we had it."

The onus bad already been placed on Trinity and UCD after Queen's novices had laid the foundations for a title win with 1 1/2 lengths to spare. Everything was level for the first 300 metres of the novice race when Queen's made their move and stole half a length on UCD. In their previous encounters, Queen's have lost out in the middle stages of the race; but now they began lengthening out their strokes and were able to fend off a UCD push at the halfway mark, raising the rate to 37 strokes.

When the senior eights lined up, it was for Trinity simply pride at stake. And 1500 metres later the consolation was theirs with a four or five boat length advantage over Queen's; UCD followed another half a length behind.

For the Trinity seniors the main race will be today when Neptune travel up to Castlewellan for the Queen's Regatta. According to Neptune coach Peter Buckley, though, the absence of Gary O'Neill who returns from the States next week, has meant that the crew are not prepared. "It's going to be a difficult regatta for us - Gary is a key man and we will be coming for the racing not the results, " Buckley said.

Jim Cassidy will move up the boat to stroke and Kevin Lynch comes in for O'Neill at three.

For the second year running UCDL claimed the women's university title and Bank of Ireland trophy. The UCD novice four, took the pressure off the rest of, the squad early on in the day, winning their event by a distance. Colours rowers Kiwana Ennis and Sonja Kidney strengthened a four that already beaten a good share of the field in previous outings.

In the early stages of the race, however, UCDL had to make up ground after a shaky start. It took 50 strokes for the four to cancel she deficit and put another length between them and nearest challengers Queen's.

The win was safe by the final third of the course when a Queen's push petered out having recovered only half a length and UCDL crossed the line rating at an unruffled 32 strokes.

Later, the same boat - Ennis, Kidney, Cliona O'Connell, Renata O'Donnell and cox Jen Yale - raced in the women's intermediate fours and came second to Trinity by 2 1/4 lengths. UCG, with under 23 member Heather Boyle, came in third.