Speculation within swimming circles about the two competitors likely to join Michelle de Bruin and Colin Lowth in Ireland's team for next month's World Championships in Perth ended yesterday when Adrian O'Connor of New Ross and Dubliner Nick O'Hare were given the nod.

National coach Ger Doyle learned of the selectors' decision from The Irish Times yesterday afternoon and said he was happy with the two additional choices.

All three male members of the team will compete in the newly-structured British Amateur Swimming Association Winter Championships, now a long-course event, in Sheffield from December 11th-14th. Michelle de Bruin's plans are fluid and are largely dependent on how soon she can return to normal training following a whiplash injury.

Doyle was disappointed to learn at the weekend of the continuing training restrictions imposed on the triple Olympic gold medallist by her injury. "Basically, what she knows she should be doing, she is not able to do at this stage," Doyle said.

Trinity student Colin Lowth, who is subjected to the pressures of exams at the moment, will be giving his shoulder injury the acid test in Sheffield when he competes for the first time since the Europeans in Vienna in August. Advocates of the notion that Ireland swimming teams should be confined to a minority of one, in this instance Michelle de Bruin, for major overseas competition were rebuffed yesterday by Doyle who, along with manager Pat Donovan, completes the managerial team for Australia.

Michelle de Bruin's world-shattering success is an entirely new phenomenon that tends, in some quarters, to overshadow the hard work of the lesser mortals according to Doyle.

Doyle has a full appreciation of the hard work that the likes of O'Hare, O'Connor, Lowth, Chantal Gibney and Lee Kelleher are willing to put in to realise their full potential in the pool.

Attaining long-course goals in Ireland cannot be easy for the obvious reason that we do not have a 50metre pool. Many swimmers gain their real motivation from the chance to represent their country abroad. Doyle would always encourage the competitor with only a remote chance of reaching an Olympic or European final to try harder.

"International recognition is the incentive for them. It would be wrong for us to deprive these competitors of the chance of competing among the best," he said. "Irish record levels would put Adrian O'Connor, Nick O'Hare and Colin Lowth into `B' finals. We should be delighted to have swimmers of such calibre," Doyle maintains.

There will be no more than four swimmers in the Irish team for Perth because of the cost of travelling.