Trinity survive scare

THERE was an early scare to shake off any complacency, but by the end of the day's racing, Trinity's seeded eight had got its latest Henley campaign off the stake boat and had become the only remaining Irish crew in the Temple Cup.

Yesterday's opponents, Atlantic City High School, started with a stone advantage per man and made it count from the first strokes, opening up a length lead by the barrier. Trinity were unsettled in the blustery headwind, but a long push started a seat by seat recovery, and by the Fawley halfway mark the margin was down to a canvass with the Americans looking ragged.

Trinity raced through to a 11/4 length lead in the remaining 1,000 thousand metres, and Ciaran Lewis in the five seat described the run home as being quite comfortable. Trinity meet Durham University today.

Neptune's only scares in the Thames Cup have come before they make the start line. On Wednesday they broke a backstay, and yesterday they received a false start for being two minutes late. Furnivall proved less of a problem and were out of the frame by the end of Temple island.

Neptune were still less hurried off the start than in their first race, and by the barrier the stroke rate was down to 31. "We hammered it off the start to Fawley more as an exercise to see how it went, and it was a little bit more controlled and powerful than be fore," said stroke Gary O Neill after having paddled over the line to win by 4 3/4 lengths.

Neptune, who race Aurial Kensington next, are now the last Irish boat in the Thames after the Defences Forces went out easily to the seeded London A. Belfast exited the Britannia fours having kept in contact with Loughborough all the way, but the seat changes in the Queens Temple eight kept them out of contention against Dartmouth `B'.

Also out are the American oarsmen and scullers of Penn Athletic, who fell victim both to the Shannon pair of Fergal Callaghan and Brian Collins in the Silver Goblets, and to Commercial's Emmet O'Brian and Lar Collins in the Double Sculls, both Irish boats snatching early leads and consolidating them.

The Commercial win sweetened the pill for sculling coach Jerry Towey, who saw his son Gearoid fall foul of "attrocious" conditions that on occasions almost forced him to a stop. Towey was conceding three stone to the seeded Merlin Vervoorn, a Nations Cup winner last year, who settled into a early lead and won by a length.