By Jeff Taylor, PA Sport, Sydney

A slice of rowing glory for the British men's eight will disappear into the murky waters of Sydney's International Regatta Centre if they fail to rediscover the fire that was missing in Monday's opening heat.

Defeat by the Australians means the 2000 World Cup winners and 1999 world silver medallists, who had beaten the Aussies in the July World Cup event at Lucerne, now must go into the repechage to try and qualify for Sunday's final.

Australia (five minutes 32.85 seconds) have almost a week to recharge their batteries along with surprise Heat 1 victors Croatia.

But the second-placed Brits, along with Canada, Russia, and Heat 1 losers the United States, Holland, Romania and Italy all go into the repechage.

Steve Trapmore explained where he thought it had gone wrong for him and the rest of the crew.

"We had a bad start," he said.

"Technically it was quite good, but there was no fire behind it.

"Straight from the start, the Australians had the fire that we needed. They got out and stayed out all the way down the course."

Brits Andrew Lindsay, Ben Hunter-Davis, Simon Dennis, Louis Attrill, Luka Grubor, Kieran West, Fred Scarlett, Rowley Douglas and Trapmore finished the 2000 metres race in 5:34.47.

"It's frustrating, but we know what's wrong before we race on Wednesday," added Trapmore.

"We need to get a bit more power, a bit more fire in the beginning. It's a platform to work from."

Another of the four British rowing teams now into repechages are the women's quadruple sculls.

The quartet of Gillian Lindsay, Guin Batten, Katherine Grainger and Miriam Batten finished second in six minutes 35.09 seconds on Monday, with winners Russia more than three seconds faster.

But Lindsay said: "I think it's good that we have to do the repechage. It gives us another race.

"I think it would be bad to have to sit around for another week. We're all pretty keen to do the rep anyway; then we'll have a break and we'll be fresh and ready for the final."

"It's going to be really close, and everybody realises that it's wide open for a medal," Lindsay added.

"We have to really focus in this week and keep believing in ourselves."

The new men's lightweight double scull crew of Tom Middleton and Tom Kay finished fourth as World Cup runners-up Pascal Touron and Thibaud Chapelle of France won in 6:32.73.

Middleton and Kay, who now go into the repechage, got a good start and were second at the 500m mark.

Unable to sustain the pace, they eventually fell behind Spain at the halfway point and were then passed by the Dutch double before finishing fourth in 6:41.74.

"We didn't quite find the race rhythm that we've been getting in training in the middle 1000m. But, with the hindsight of this race, we'll be able to do that on Wednesday," said Middleton.

The British women's eight of Alison Sanders, Rowan Carroll, Elise Laverick, Francesca Zino, Alison Trickey, Alexandra Beever, Kate MacKenzie, Lisa Eyre and Charlotte Miller finished fourth in their heat in 6:19.49.

Winners Romania (6:06.66) move on to the final, while Australia and Belarus join the Brits in the repechage.