FOURTEEN years after his first title at the National Championships, John Armstrong raced through a high quality field to secure the lightweight singles sculls title and put himself in the frame for the Irish quad that will race in the World Championships at Strathclyde next month.

The scullers started yesterday's final in Inniscarra, Co. Cork, with the incentive of a World Championship seat for the first and second places.

Also in with a chance for the quad is Serryth Colbert, who recovered six lengths to beat Galway's Owen Diveney in the closing stages of the intermediate sculls. Colbert hit a buoy early in the race and stopped for 10 seconds before making his fight back.

St Michael's and Shannon had a comfortable win over Neptune, who had the better of the starts. The scratch composite four strode it out and passed Neptune midway into the race. Neptune's Albert Maher was expecting his boat to move away, but later conceded that they could not do more when the stronger crew raced through them.

In the women's coxless four final UCD L became the latest crew to experience the tenacity of Shandon's juniors. Their aggressive approach at Henley was repeated on Inniscarra but there was more control, at times the juniors were underrating UCD L and stayed within one length throughout. We went out there to make an impact as a junior crew and see how close we could come, said Ciara Coughlan, Shandon's bow.