This will be full of challenges for Irish rowing. The recent Sport Ireland grants will fall well short of covering the plans in this Olympic year, and Hamish Adams, the Rowing Ireland chief executive says the body will have to find extra sources of funds. He points out that the situation has changed radically in the last five years: the egm in April will be told that in 2010 the Sports Council funded all but €100,000 of high performance activities - in 2015 Rowing Ireland self-funded almost 50 per cent of its high performance activities (€350,000 alongside the €400,000 grant).

In 2016, with the expense of sending at least two crews to Rio, the high performance grant is, again, €400,000.

This weekend there is speed testing for crews at the National Rowing Centre. In 12 weeks’ time, at least one Ireland crew, and perhaps as many as three, will compete at the Olympic Qualification regatta in Lucerne. Single sculler Sanita Puspure successfully negotiated the qualifier in 2012, finding a place alongside Kim Crow and Fie-Udby Erichsen, both of whom won medals in London. This year, one of the greatest of all single scullers, Ekaterina Karsten, is set for the qualifier, alongside the 2014 world champion, Emma Twigg and Erichsen - these three finished fifth, fourth and second in London. There are three places for Rio available in Lucerne.

In the last week, Twigg, a New Zealander who was studying in Europe in 2015 and was not picked for her national team, showed outstanding form at the New Zealand national championships.

Back in Ireland, the Lagan head of the river on Saturday will provide some welcome domestic action, now that the weather has finally settled. The Erne Head of the River, a major lift off in the early season, follows next Saturday, March 5th. The draw for this year’s head is led off by senior eights from Trinity, NUIG, UCD and Commercial, with an intermediate eight from Queen’s and the generally excellent Portora junior eight also competing.