The weekend was an action packed one with Queen’s getting their first true taste of the 2km course this season.
Friday, the rescheduled Irish University Championships took place to decide the Wiley Cup. Queen’s men entered in the intermediate category and entered the fresher crew in the novice category. The fresher crew where beaten into third place by a strong UCD performance who won the category convincingly. This proved valuable experience for the crew, who are now aware of the standard required to win over 2k at university level. Hopefully they can take this experience and use it to their advantage in next week’s boat race against TCD. The intermediate eight raced a two boat race against UCD. Both boats sat level to the 1000m mark, where UCD showed their strength by pushing away to take the win.
On Saturday, Metro Regatta took place. The conditions were outstanding setting up for a fantastic day’s racing. The men entered two novice eights and the intermediate eight. In the novice eights final, UCD again came first with Queen’s A finishing second and the B crew finishing fifth place. The A crew were unimpressed by their start and hope to give UCD a better race next time. The intermediate crew finished third behind second placed UCD and winners Commercial. Both these crews had a good margin of three lengths on the rest of the field with Commercial pipping UCD to the post. The intermediate crew are now aware of the standard they must reach for the National Championships.
The men’s novice 4 produced a sterling performance coming second in the men’s novice 4+ which was excellent for an all fresher crew. The intermediate pair of Gavin Meek and Jonathan Backus managed third place in their final and are confident they can build on this as they feel they have rowed better previously. Andrew Cairns put in an impressive performance, reaching the final of the novice sculls were he placed sixth, a great effort for his first race in this discipline.
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