Winning gold at the European Rowing Championship is not unfamiliar territory for Alan Sinclair but the Inverness rower concedes adding to his medal collection will be easier said than done.

The 32-year-old is part of the men’s eight that needed a repechage to qualify for the final at the Strathclyde Country Park.

But getting to Sunday’s showpiece hasn’t been an easy ride after finishing behind Romania in the repechage and Sinclair insists the crew must do better.

“I wouldn’t say I was happy with the performance,” said Sinclair. “There was definitely an improvement from the start.

“I don’t think we over-egged the power but maybe we weren’t as thoughtful and a bit reckless throwing ourselves at it a bit too much.

“We needed to be more relaxed and it wasn’t as efficient as it could’ve been. It’s something we’ll address in training before the final.

“The target remains the same, we want to win. We want to get the best possible position and the only way we’re going to do that is if we bring our A game.

“The competition is very good and at the moment we’re not even doing our best of what we’re doing in training let alone raising our game for the race.”

Three years ago Sinclair was part of the coxless four that stormed to gold at the Europeans in Poznan, Poland.

The experienced head is certainly not panicking about the crew’s time in Glasgow but insists they must start showing the same kind of form that took them to Rowing World Cup silver in Linz, Austria, in June.

He said: “I’ve been in this situation before when things haven’t clicked and you don’t always know where that magic feather is.

“The importance is on simplicity and not over thinking it. I would put my opinion on stripping things back, making it really simple and we go out and clear and minds and get things back to normal again.”

SSE customers can get up to 48 hour advanced ticketing, lounge upgrades, exclusive competitions and VIP experiences at our sponsored venues, The SSE Arena, Wembley and The SSE Hydro. We’re also incredibly proud to support The SSE Women’s FA Cup. ssereward.com