Two valiant performances in the two finals failed to yield a title for an Irish crew at Henley Royal Regatta yesterday.

The Commercial quadruple scull were beaten by a length by the reigning champions, Augusta Sculling Centre from the United States, in the Queen Mother final. The Dubliners fell behind at the beginning and could never push past their much heavier rivals.

The weight difference was probably the key factor, especially since the breeze was close to being a headwind. The Americans were four stone a man heavier on average than the Irish crew (15st 3lb to 11 st 3lb), and two of the Augusta crew were over 16 stone.

In the Britannia final, Neptune's coxed four came within a length of giving Ciaran Lewis his first win in five finals. The Irish crew, which came together for this regatta, failed by three-quarters of a length to Oxford Brookes University after a real dogfight.

The Irish crew needed a good start to negate their opponents' experiential advantage but they did not get it. Once in front, the English crew held on despite a number of pushes by Neptune, who had been better over the finishing half in earlier races. They had had an impressive win over Marlow by three lengths on Saturday.

Colm Butler, the Neptune coach, identified the difference in experience as the key factor in yesterday's defeat. "They were together all year but this was our first regatta as a crew," he pointed out. But the combination of Lewis, Sean Jacob, Simon Wyss and Brendan Duke, with cox Brendan Farrell, has a future, Butler believes - "we have big ambitions for next year".

Both Irish finalists yesterday had come through in fine style on Saturday, but the day saw the end of Trinity's participation. Their coxless four was beaten by an extremely strong Isis crew, which had three of the Oxford senior eight. Neptune's single sculler Albert Maher also exited against the very best, in his case world champion Jamie Koven.