Four years ago Matthew Mitcham walked away from the Delhi Commonwealth Games clutching four silver medals.

His disappointment at not being able to win a single gold was one of the driving forces behind the Beijing gold medalist's decision to push on to Glasgow, after he briefly considered retirement after the London Olympics.

Now he has a fifth silver medal to add to his collection, after he finished second behind England's Jack Laugher in the 1-metre springboard.

It's not Mitcham's strongest event in Glasgow, and his unreserved jubilation at finishing second suggested he was more than happy with the additional silverware.

Adding to his enthusiasm was that his close friend and 3-metre synchro partner, Grant Nel, finished third and would join him on the medal podium.

Nel had dived below his best in the morning's preliminaries, but showed from his first dive in the final that he meant business.

Nel led the field briefly, but yo-yo'd as low as fifth before finishing strongly to claim the bronze.

Also yo-yoing their way through the field on opening night were Anabelle Smith and Maddison Keeney in the 3-metre synchro.

At one stage the Brisbane-based pairing found themselves at the back of the field, but an outstanding fourth dive catapulted them to the gold medal position, with fellow Australians Anna Gelai and Esther Qin in fourth.

Gelai and Qin had been the more consistent throughout the final, and with both pairings looking medal prospects with one dive to go it was a good time to be an Australian.

Both pairs handled the pressure well in their final dives, but an almost perfect final dive from the English pair of Blagg and Gallentree saw them snatch the gold, with Keeney and Smith finishing with bronze and Qin and Gelai an encouraging fourth.

In diving's first medal event, the 10-metre synchro, Australia's Rachel Bugg and Melissa Wu had strong medal credentials.

However it was a world-class field, judging by the appearance of five of the six top pairs from the diving World Cup one week earlier.

One mistake was likely to prove costly, and so it proved for Bugg and Wu. Despite a strong finish the Australians had to settle for fifth.

*Photo's - Getty: Quinn Rooney