HENLY REGATTA: "Three cheers for the President of Ireland," called the chairman of the organising committee, Mike Sweeney, and the assembly responded with gusto. Then they stood to attention for God Save the Queen. The phrase "unique occasion" is over-used, but when Mary McAleese presented the prizes at Henley Royal Regatta last evening it fitted perfectly.

In a warm and witty speech President McAleese spoke of how at Henley each year "the bonds of rivalry" among the competitors were "transcended by the respect they have for each other" and it seemed a fitting motif for this acknowledgment of the long-lasting Irish contribution to this essentially English occasion.

It was a pity no Irish crew was there right at the end to receive silverware from the President, yet the one rower to twice come around to take an award from her, Harvard's Graham O'Donoghue, has strong links to Kerry and has visited his relatives there.

But it wasn't the Irish link that made him one of the stories of the regatta, but the way in which he ended up stroking two of the three Harvard crews which won yesterday. He stroked the Harvard B crew to their win in the Britannia at 12.10 p.m. and was ready to let his hair down come 3.30 p.m. "I was going to have my first pint when I met some guys who told me (the coach) was looking for me," he said. The stroke of the Temple eight had fallen ill and a substitute was needed.

In a terrific race the Harvard crew - who had never sat into a boat together before - held off Oxford Brookes to cling onto a lead and won by ¾ of a length.

Galwayman Serryth Colbert also got to take one of the big prizes. The 28-year-old, who has degrees in dentistry and medicine, rowed at number seven in the Leander eight which had an emphatic victory over Nottingham County. He moved to England and joined Leander specifically to win at Henley. "For today's race; I came to the right spot," he says.

And prove yourself at Leander and the honours will come. "To go somewhere else would be a step down. This is where I belong," says Colbert, who practises as a dentist but who has prioritised rowing, to make it "as full-time as possible". But what about coming back into the Irish system? "What Irish system?," he asks.

On Saturday after Seán Casey had been beaten in the semi-final of the Diamond Sculls, you ask the big Muckross man, who rows out of Saugatuck in Connecticut, if he intends to continue to base himself in the US and you hear another athlete who is disaffected with Ireland's management structures.

The man who has just come within one win of reaching the prestigious Diamond Sculls final only took up sculling last September because having come through the college system in the US he could see no coaching structure in which he could find a place in Ireland.

His coach, James Mangan, a Limerick man who is a leading light in the successful Saugatuck, is coruscating about the lack of widely available selection criteria in the structures in the Ireland set-up which he says is not giving young talent the chance it deserves. Mangan begins to sum up his point by saying it is all about the athlete, about "the simplicity of being able to train hard without the confusion of " . . . "Getting stuck in the politics of the situation," Casey finishes.

Casey, who won Irish pairs and fours titles with Muckross in 2000, intends to compete at the National Championships again this year. To prove a point, one suspects.

Apart from Colbert's performance, Ireland's competitive interest in the regatta had ended on Saturday, when both Neptune's eight and Casey were beaten in convincing fashion. Neptune went out in the semi-final of the Thames Cup to Notts County by two lengths and Casey by 3¾ lengths to Leander's Matthew Langridge.

"No excuses, really," he says of his defeat to Langridge, the world junior champion, although he says that once ahead Langridge was warned for straying from his line, making it difficult to row in his puddles. In fact the stewards recorded warning the Englishman three times, at the Barrier, Fawley and three-quarter mile mark "but Casey could not close the gap sufficient to warrant a challenge".

Although they never drifted as far back, Neptune had also learned to their cost that in two-boat races letting your opponent build up an early lead can be ruinous. Neptune did not row badly, but Notts County had much the smoother start and after seizing the lead they stretched it to one length by the quarter of a mile and two lengths by Fawley, between half and three-quarter miles into the race.

Neptune consistently rated higher than the English crew, but never looked like building up a momentum to catch and head their rivals - they did cut the lead to 1½ lengths, but Notts County were moving sweetly and won in a very fast six minutes 34 seconds. The start was identified as the key point in the race by Bert Farrell, the experienced Neptune cox: "We expected we might be a bit down but they just blew us away," he said.

Farrell, who coxed the winning Thames Cup crew in 1996, said this would be his last Henley as a competitor, but pointed out that the rest of the crew, bar number-five man Ciarán Lewis, who is 31, have an average age in the early 20s - and the last winning Neptune crew took a few years to crack it. Coach Neville Maxwell had the same analysis: "They were beaten by a better crew and must learn from it," he said.

Thomas Ball, the number three man, pointed out that the Notts County's time was faster than last year's final time - Ghent won in 6:44 last year. He is off to Australia next year, but intends to compete here again. "You have to come back here. To win Henley."

For the home crowd the win for Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell in the Silver Goblets yesterday was expected but, in the end, far from comfortable. They had to come from behind mid-race and then had to scramble to defend their lead at the end, almost hitting a boom before the line.

More impressive wins on a day, which started cold and overcast but brightened up by late afternoon were the French double scull of Sebastien Vieilledent and Adrien Hardy, who beat world champions Tibor Peto and Akos Haller by all of four lengths.

The hard-luck story of the regatta had to be Cambridge's in the Visitors yesterday. On a day when a number of crews were - the early stories went - affected by food poisoning from eating meat (later blamed on a virus), geese flew onto the course - and seemed to head for the blades of the crews - forcing a re-row of the race. Cambridge won the first time by one length, but lost by 2½ lengths.

Unfortunately for one of the geese the attempt to see the regatta ended in its only fatality.