Published: Friday, 18th June, 2010 3:04pm

Success for Offaly Rowing Club at Metro Regatta

While the junior women trained on the Grand Canal, other members of Offaly Rowing Club travelled to Blessington Lake, Co. Wicklow to compete in the Metro (Metropolitan) Regatta, a six lane course. There were a total of three wins for Offaly Rowing Club in both the senior women's and junior men's categories.

Metro also provided the junior quadruple scull with an opportunity to race against their Carrick-on-Shannon rivals who pipped them at Carlow Regatta the previous weekend.

Both Joanne and Eimear Moran represented the club in the senior women's double scull and the single scull. Competing together in the double scull both Eimear and Joanne had a comfortable victory over their rivals to take first place. In the single sculls, Eimear came though the heats to earn herself and place in the "A" final and Joanne a place in the "B" finals. The final results were Eimear in third place and Joanne in eighth (after finishing second in the "B" final).

Offaly Rowing Club was represented by James Peters and Karl Jordan in the junior 14 men's single sculls over a 1,000m course. There was a win for James Peters over fellow club member Karl Jordan who finished second. In the men's junior 15 category competing over 1,500m, the club was represented by Patrick Grogan and Patrick Walsh. Patrick Grogan added to the Offaly Rowing Club medals by cruising to victory. In his first rowing race, Patrick Walsh, competing in the same final as Patrick Grogan, was placed fourth and demonstrated good solid rowing throughout.

For the novice men's quadruple scull of Mantas Pukelis, Anthony Gannon, Jamie Adams, James Houlihan and cox Conor O'Brien, Metro Regatta brought great success.

The quadruple scull achieved third place in their heat giving them a place in their first "A" final which would guarantee the crew a place in the top five crews of the day. Coming up against the Carrick-on-Shannon crew who beat them in Carlow Regatta on the June bank holiday weekend and the winning Carlow crew at Carlow Regatta, the Offaly crew were up against tough competition.

In the final moments of the race Offaly and Carrick-on-Shannon Rowing Club once again found themselves fighting for second place with Carrick-on-Shannon once again denying Offaly pushing the crew into third place. This crew have improved enormously since their first competition in Queen's Regatta, Castlewellan, Co. Down, last April.

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