Mosman Rowing Club was well represented at the regatta, in both the selection test races and in the later interstate events. Nagambie as usual, was benign to dreadful. Will Liley, your friendly MRC correspondent, put together the below report of the highlights as he saw them (apologies to anyone not featured, but this focuses on those Mosman rowers going for representative spots).

Monday morning, and the wind was so bad for the single sculls heats that they had to row time trials single file down Lane 7. Everyone got through to the next round except Jaxon Rudduck whose inexperience in this horrible “style” of racing meant he missed out by only 0.6 seconds. Very bad luck, as it meant that the best he could now do was win the D Final - he would realistically have had a chance for the B Final, putting him into the top 12.

The highlight of the singles semi-final was Zoe Uphill’s great race to qualify for the A Final of the women’s elite singles. She said she had a terrible start (officials waving flags at her, clipping a buoy - the conditions were still pretty terrible) but she consciously put them out of her mind and just raced, and she got there. She wore a grin to light up the world after she qualified, and wasn’t resting on it either - she wanted to get fourth in the final. Amy Ives qualified for the B Final, and Noono (Dan Noonan) and Peter Hardcastle both made the A Final (no surprises there).

By this stage (Monday afternoon), the regatta was already half a day behind, and everything was pushed back, which compressed the finals.

In the men’s and women’s singles finals, Noono sadly came down with a virus before the race and had to be shipped home - he was going well and could have placed, so it’s now revenge time in the trials at SIRC in a month, hopefully in fair conditions. Pete placed fifth. In the women’s final, Zoe also placed fifth, very close to beating Kate Sens, while Amy Ives came third in the B Final. Meanwhile Luke Freeman was rowing his way through the prelims of every event known to man or beast, and we’ll report on his progress later.

In the pairs and doubles next day, World Champs Duncan Free and Drew Ginn saw off the challenge from James Tompkins and young Sam Conrad (who came third), again in awful conditions. Your correspondent has never seen elite rowers so at sea: shipwrecks; crabs; spills. The winners’ experience last year at Eton stood them in good stead! The guess is that the results will be a lot closer at SIRC, but Drew/Duncan appear to have the edge. Big Tom Laurich was in the A Final with Fergus Pagnell of SUBC but they could not repeat their form from the NSW Champs, and came sixth.

The women’s double sculls saw a major upset, with singles winner Pippa Savage and second-place getter Kerry Hore combining to row down the World Champions, Pratley and Kell in the last 300M. Zoe and Amy were again prevented from rowing together, but combined with others to make the A Final.

By Thursday, conditions were improving and the racing was fair through to early Sunday morning when it blew up in the last two hours just in time for all of the major finals.

But for the elite fours and quads, it was great racing. The pick of the races were the women’s quad and the men’s four. Tompkins/Conrad and Ginn/Free combined to win a very hot race of all the big names, and looked very good. Tempting for the selectors, to send them away to take on the Brits? Your correspondent doesn’t think so, but Tompkins is clearly back and in good form.

Zoe had already notched some scores in the singles and the double; Amy needed one and the quad was her last real opportunity. It was a great race between the top eight scullers. Amy stroked the boat with Pippa Savage, Kerry Hore and Sonia Mills behind her, up against the doubles World Champions of Pratley and Kell, Zoe, and Kate Sens. Zoe’s crew led by 0.43 seconds at the 1000M, then Amy powered her crew through to lead by 2 lengths at the 1500, and win well in a good time. Big grins this time for Amy, “It was so exciting. Pippa was talking to me all the way down the course, and it felt so fast!”

Pete Hardcastle then combined with outstanding young gun James McCrae (second in the singles); Chris Morgan; and Matthew Bolt, to win the men’s quad narrowly in another exciting race. Pete’s best effort though, was later in the President’s Cup on Sunday when he sculled down the worst lane in a strong cross-head wind to claim third behind Crawshay and McCrae on the other (favoured) side of the course - no one else in Lane One placed all day, except Shore in the Schoolboys’ VIIIs in another great row.

Al Matthews and Kieran Kobelke won the men’s youth VIII in fine style, and your correspondent’s eagle eye noted that both of them are rowing exceptionally well - Keiran’s legs are even going down fast these days! Luke finished the regatta with two silvers and a bronze from the double and the pair, and should be very pleased. He is a strong candidate for selection in the Australian Junior/Senior B team this year.

So, the Club can be very proud of the efforts of all our athletes. Everyone is now re-doubling efforts for the next test races, with some revenge in sight, especially for Jaxon in the singles and (with Nick Hudson) in the doubles. Zoe is a contender for selection in the senior sculling team, and Noono looks for a score after his unfortunate virus attack.

Well done to our coaches Alfie Young and Mark Beer, led by Nick Garratt, in preparing all of the rowers so well. It was hot, dusty, windy and (occasionally) very unfair - when will the officials ever learn? - but the Mosman team was ready.

MRC Rowing Correspondent

Will Liley

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This entry was posted by Will on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 12:07and is filed under Articles, Domestic, News, Results. You can leave a response.