Commercial and Neptune crews made a positive start at Henley Royal Regatta yesterday, but the story concerning the other Irish crews was more mixed. In the Thames Cup for eights, Commercial justified their seeding with a 3 1/2 length win over Twickenham, but Ireland's other representatives, Garda, lost out to the seeded Bowbridge after leading for almost half the race, which at six minutes, 49 seconds was the joint fastest of the day. Adrian McCallion, who rowed with Galway RC but is now based in England, was in the bow seat for Bowbridge.

Trinity take part in the top eights event, the Ladies Plate, today, when they are pencilled in to meet Kolubu Sport, Galatasaray.

Neptune's challenge was weakened considerably when their outstanding lightweight four had to pull out before the draw because Tony O'Connor is still recuperating from injury, but the club's coxed four had a comfortable win in the Britannia Cup over Germany's Heidelberger. In the same event UCG beat Syracuse. In the Diamond Sculls Neptune's Albert Maher began his recovery from his poor showing at the Hazewinkel World Cup regatta with a good win, and Commercial's Donal Hanrahan also won. Galway's Serryth Colbert, however, was well beaten. Fermoy's Gearoid Towey had a bye yesterday the draw may pit him against Maher tomorrow.