Having been beaten by Cantabs in the final of Elite about an hour before this S2 final, Southampton were looking for a pot. They'd also beaten us in the Elite heat, so were probably fairly confident. We had a blinding start and moved ahead by perhaps 1/3l. Some good rowing in the fairly turbulent harbour saw us maintain this until they put in a strong push at about half way, and drew level. The rowing in the second half was not as good as the first, with a couple of untidy finishes, though never badly stuck in. They lifted for the finish slightly ahead of us and had a lead of a few feet, but our move was eating back into them. Unfortunately JPD was too intent on the push and his blade hit the penultimate buoy (which amusingly they had hit in the final against Cantabs) which gave them the advantage. I'd say this was the closest we came to winning all weekend - the Northwich pair on Saturday had pushed us away more easily coming into the finish. Chatting to the Southampton boys at Ross it seems they've got a 2k average well under 6:20 - I guess ours is ten or fifteen seconds worse - and are hoping to come to Cambridge next year to trial for CUBC, so being just a few feet down (as I suspect the margin would have been) was quite pleasing.
(Rose the Twat)