ROWING - NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS:IN THE end it was emphatic: Trinity carried off the senior eights title at the National Championships in Farran Wood in Cork on Saturday with a performance which left little room for doubt.
A regatta which featured a myriad of composite crews ended with the men in black and white holding off another young single-club crew in Commercial.
The composite of Galway, Old Collegians, Shannon and Tribesmen took the early lead, but Trinity passed them and made the race their own by the time they swept past the massed crowds near the striking clubhouse, which came into its own for this event.
Commercial's challenge added a little spice, but there was only going to be one winner. NUIG - who did not lift a single national title - were pushed into fourth by the composite.
"It all went to plan," said Trinity captain Ali Floyd, before paying tribute to coach Mark Pattison, whose tenure this year was far from plain sailing. But a turbulent year ended well.
"I always had faith in this crew. I knew they would do what was needed and they proved me right. I'm very proud of them," Pattison said.
It is 27 years since Trinity last won "the big pot" on their own.
Their main rivals in the next few years may be the club which holds the far bank at Islandbridge.
UCD had a superb championships, confirming their status as the rising power in the land. Their men won the intermediate and novice eights crowns as well as the intermediate pair and novice four. Their women took the novice eight, intermediate coxed four and senior double scull.
But in the women's senior eight, UCD's ambitions were blasted away by a Muckross crew taking their first senior eights crown on their own. They were even more convincing winners than their Trinity counterparts. It was a pity their win in the senior fours came by virtue of a row over.
Muckross are having an extraordinary year: Olympians Seán Casey, Cathal Moynihan and Paul Griffin are all Muckross men. And Casey's sisters, Anita and Denise, were in the crew which won on Saturday.
Rory O'Connor won the senior single sculls title and partnered Andrew Neale to the senior doubles and spoke of this year as his "comeback". It might seem odd that a man just turned 21 should use this term, but he has been out for 13 months with injury, and is now raring to return to the Ireland system, initially at under-23 level.
The doubles win came at the expense of brothers Sam and Hughie Lynch, who were also part of a senior four which struggled in a race won by the Galway Rowing Club and Shannon composite of John Forde, Marc Stephens, Dave Mannion and Kenny McDonald. McDonald (35) said it would be his last row at the championships.
These athletes had also been part of winning the coxed four on Friday, and Stephens and Forde had also bagged the senior pairs title, presaging a revival of the fortunes of Galway RC, even as NUIG encountered a bad patch. "We're long enough second to College," said Forde.
The four-club composite which won the women's senior quadruple scull had Caroline Ryan as stroke, allowing the Garda another chance to showcase her talents, as she won the senior singles title on Friday.
Comment of the day was reserved for a young man who was also winning his second title. Mark O'Donovan added the intermediate single scull to the lightweight single of the day before. They were his first two pots. "But I was a good cox, back in my day," said the 19-year-old.
The new course added to a well-run event, but the viewing public would have been so much better served if the finishing line, which runs across at an angle to the bank, were better delineated.
