UCD's quadruple scull can feel themselves a little unlucky this morning not to be still part of the action at Henley Royal Regatta. The crew provided plenty of excitement for Irish supporters yesterday when they dead-heated with Crabtree in their first race, but in the re-row last night UCD were beaten by a length.

Neptune's eight, however, continued their good run in the Thames Challenge Cup. After removing a selected (seeded) crew on Wednesday in Thames Tradesmen, the Dublin crew went on to beat Hereford by 2-1/4 lengths.

However many of the Ireland hopefuls fell yesterday: Queen's made their exit to Yale University in the Temple; Garda's coxed four fell to a selected crew, Durham A , in the Britannia, and Albert Maher's hopes in the Diamond Sculls ended when he was beaten in the first round.

Ireland still have one representative in the Temple, for college eights, in the ambitious NUIG crew. The Galway college made strenuous efforts to be selected and again justified this on the water yesterday with a win over Oxford Brookes B by three-quarters of a length.

Even the seeding, however, does not guarantee avoiding the top crews all the way through, and NUIG today face one of the favourites, Harvard A.