KEY POINTS:
Three gold medals, three silvers and some dented reputations told the New Zealand story of the World Cup rowing regatta which ended in Amsterdam this morning (NZ time).
The men's coxless four and pair emerged victorious while lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant pipped Storm Uru in a one-two finish to their final.
The other silvers went to the women's pair of Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles and the women's double sculls crew of twins Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, who both were both beaten by Chinese crews.
With limited time together in the build-up, the Olympic champion twins could not keep pace with technically superb Qin Li and Liang Tian.
Even more surprising was the sight of two-time world champion Mahe Drysdale managing only fourth in a high-quality men's single sculls final.
Rowing New Zealand high performance manager Andrew Matheson was heartened by the medal haul but said it was expected that some of the New Zealanders would be below their best less than a week after arriving in Europe.
Their programmes were all tailored towards improving at the next World Cup meet at Lucerne in three weeks and then peaking for the world championships at Munich starting on August 26.
"These results are a pretty good benchmark of where we're at now," Matheson told NZPA.
"We look at the whole campaign in it's entirety, the critical thing is Munich.
"Each crew will come up a bit and I think we've got enough data from World Cups over the last three-four years to know where we need to be."
Matheson said the performance of the women's pair and the men's pair of George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle were particularly pleasing as both were well off the pace at the same stage last year.
"Twelve months ago the women couldn't even make the final and here they are challenging with a really fast time for the win," he said.
"They looked pretty comfortable with what they're doing. They obviously haven't done any speedwork yet so I thought it was a top performance."
A blistering finish from the men's four of Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, James Dallinger and Carl Meyer saw them catch the fancied Netherlands and win by just 0.36 seconds.
The world class British were not in Amsterdam but that did not bother Meyer, who has endured a number of near-misses at World Cups.
"After four-five years it's bloody good," he told Radio Sport.
"It was a gutsy row, a good finish. I'm bloody happy, we can go onwards from here hopefully."
Matheson described the duel between Grant and Uru as "sensational", with the two World Cup regattas being used as a trial to find one candidate to line up at Munich.
Grant finished three seconds clear of world under-23 champion Uru.
"This is what we expected to happen, they're bringing the best out of each other," Matheson said.
"Duncan raced exceptionally well and Storm's starting to find a bit of form as well."
Matheson believed the Evers-Swindell sisters had ample room for improvement.
"They've had a few injury issues and given where they've come from, I thought it was a pretty solid performance and something that will give them a lot of confidence," he said.
"They're getting back to the speed that they had the best part of 18 months ago."
The men's double scull of Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan were fifth, with Sullivan a late replacement for the injured Matthew Trott.
The New Zealanders were to return to their Belgium training base in Hazewinkel to prepare for Lucerne.
- NZPA
