The coxless pair of Vanessa Lawrenson and Debbie Stack raised a so-far subdued international season yesterday when their medal-winning performance at the de facto under-23 world championships in Milan turned attention from further Irish disappointment in the lightweight single sculls. Bronze could have been gold, though. The pair had earlier recorded the fastest time to the halfway mark in their repechage and were leading the final, 750 metres in, when Lawrenson hit a lane buoy with her blade and almost brought the boat to a stop.

The UCD Ladies Boat Club stablemates recovered strongly in the latter stages of the race to close the Russian pair down to half a length. But Britian's Grainger and Zino were by then in an unassailable position out in front.

Gearoid Towey's claim to the single seat at the forthcoming world championships is, by his own admission, looking remote after his Nation's Cup defence on Idroscalo lake ended in disaster. Temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade and a tough four-race schedule left the Fermoy sculler sapped of energy when he went to break away from the field at 1,000 metres and the rest of the race was spent slipping down the order to rest in fifth place.

For the international debutantes at Milan the step up in competition was more of an eye-opener. "Basically we weren't big enough, fit enough or together enough," reflected stroke William Gilbert, shortly after the Irish coxless four made its early first round exit on Saturday.

Hard-learnt lessons from Italy should at least benefit the next crop of under-23 rowers who wrapped up eight Home International titles on Saturday, with likely candidates for the mooted World championship double scull - possibly with Towey - among those being sized up in Nottingham.

Skibbereen's Ross O'Donovan, who beat three of the Irish quad members at the national championships last week, further strengthened his case with a tactically astute performance in the lightweight sculls final. The 20year-old took early control of the race and rowed down challenges before going on to win by three lengths. The Irish senior eights won two bowball to bowball races with Scotland, and the junior men came within one point of winning their team match after cleaning up in the sculling events - Padraig Hussey taking first place in the single scull - and the coxed four.