JUDGING BY the number of trialists entered for the Cork City Regatta on Saturday - the first of the season over a 2,000-metre, multi-lane course - the race for international selection has begun in earnest.
Certainly, it seems as though the road to winning an international seat has, for the moment at least, been signposted via Inniscara lake. Trials held at the national rowing centre earlier in the month drew more than 60 athletes from 22 clubs, and from the selectors' report published last week it seems clear that they have kept their options open.
Just two men's lightweight single sculls are entered for the opening World Cup regatta in Munich later this month, and Gearoid Towey's inclusion as one of them almost turned Saturday's senior one final into a scalp hunt. Neptune's Albert Maher and Shandon's Noel Monahan pushed hard, but in a near re-run of one of the trial races Towey broke away at the halfway mark and was allowed to stretch out a 1 1/2 length lead.
In the senior one eights, an essentially reserve Neptune crew survived constant pressure on their lead, first from Garda, then St Michael's, and in the last 1,000 metres from the Defence Forces, to take the Leander Trophy by 1 1/4 lengths.
The Defence Forces had earlier stolen the intermediate title by five feet after coming from 1 1/2 lengths behind, but in stepping up a division they tensed up and rowed too short to seriously threaten Neptune's lead.
The medal potential of oarsmen in the under-23 Nations Cup squad was underlined by their performance in the recent trials, and with uncertainty still surrounding the number of seats on offer, six of the squad returned to Inniscara for a rematch in the senior one pairs final.
Neptune's Frank Sheridan and Fermoy's Paul Hickey were dropped off the start and 1 1/2 lengths down in third place before they began pushing at the light-weight reserves Paul Flannery and Keith Flynn, to challenge for the lead. But the composite lacked the finish to close the half-a-length advantage that Tribesmen's Ray Boyle and Kevin Carroll defended to the line.
