Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy remain on course to retain their lightweight double sculls world title after another winning performance at the World Rowing Championships in Racice, Czech Republic.
Four Irish crews booked their passage through to A finals this morning as O'Donovan and McCarthy again stamped their class on proceedings.
The reigning World, Olympic and European champions looked untroubled in their two earlier outings in the competition and in this morning's semi-final, while they didn't dominate from the start, they assumed control in the second half of the race to take the win.
The Swiss crew of Jan Schaeuble and Raphael Ahumada made the early running, maintaining half a second lead over the Irish pair through to halfway, with Ukraine in third.
From there, however, the Skibbereen duo eased through the gears and nudged ahead with 700 metres to go. With the finishing line in sight it was a matter of controlling the stroke rate – hovering around the 39 per-minute mark – as they finished nearly a boat length ahead of the Swiss in a time of 6:24.41.
Their final takes place at 1.23pm on Saturday.
Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen put in a fine showing to progress to the final of the women's lightweight double sculls on Saturday (11.04am).
Third at the halfway point, they got ahead of the Greek crew to finish second to Great Britain in a time of 7:02.15.
Also through to an A final is the women's four. Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty were second throughout their race, finishing just under two seconds behind Great Britain to advance to Saturday's final (1.39pm).
In the mixed double sculls repechage, Katie O'Brien and Steven McGowan booked a place in the A final by finishing second behind Uzbekistan in a time of 8:52.28.
They are back in action on Saturday at 12.04pm.
Lydia Heaphy failed to progress from the lightweight single sculls A/B semi-finals. The Skibbereen woman was in her third outing of the championships but she found the going difficult in a race comfortably won by Romania's Ionela Cozmiuc.
Heaphy crossed the line in sixth place with a time of 7:56.88 and will take her place in the B final on Saturday morning at 9.41am.
Natalie Long and Tara Hanlon claimed a fifth-place finish in the women's pair semi-final.
The Irish women made a decent start from lane two and in the early stages it appeared like they would battle it out with Czech Republic and Croatia for third, but after halfway, began to slip back as Netherlands pushed the pace at the front.
The Irish crew came home fifth in a time of 7:21.21 and will compete in the B final, with Romania finishing strongly to edge out the Dutch for victory.
The men's four were edged out of a place in the A final when they were pipped for the third position by Switzerland.
At the 500m point, Jack Dorney, Nathan Timoney, Ross Corrigan and John Kearney sat in third, just behind Netherlands and Romania.
By halfway, just three metres separated the top three, but the Irish crew, with an average age of 21, began to slip back with the Swiss upping the pressure.
It was the Swiss who finished stronger down the stretch, taking the third automatic spot as Ireland crossed the line in a time of 6:07.31, with the Dutch first and Romania second.
Saturday's B final takes place at 11.28am.
In the afternoon's action, three crews advanced to C finals.
Brian Colsh was overtaken by China’s Wei Han in the final 100 metres of the single sculls but he safely advanced to Sunday’s C final at 10.16am.
Alison Bergin will be in final action eight minutes later on Sunday (10.24am) after finishing her single sculls semi-final in style, easing past Japan’s Alison Bergin for victory.
It was a commanding performance by Konan Pazzaia and Philip Doyle in the double sculls, winning their C/D semi-final by nearly seven seconds from Serbia.
The final starts at 10.32am on Sunday.
Hugh Moore missed out on a place in the lightweight single sculls C final after a fourth-place finish.
With the top three progressing, the Queens University student was third with 500 metres to go, but was reeled in by Austria’s Konrad Hultsch to finish with a time of 7:26.52 as Iran’s Amirhossein Mahmoodpour coasted to victory.
His D final takes place at 9.15am tomorrow.
Watch the World Rowing Championships finals live on RTÉ Player from Friday to Sunday and live on RTÉ One from midday Saturday
