The Club's Results

Solid rate meant we beat them in the second half.
The start was a bit messy but we eventually settled on a rhythm (no ratemeter though)
Good lines through the corners and out onto the reach, where we were 3 seconds down.
However the rhythm continued and pressure didn't drop and we reeled them in down the reach, with good ground being made by holding in the finishes.
After we crossed the line, wound down and turned and watched in disbelief as Clare took their final few strokes to the finish. (Thomas)

Much as Tom said, all the work on rowing long and flat really paid off with it coming together at rate really well and plenty of work going down in the water. After an impressively calm start, with only a slight wobble in the outflow, we settled into a good sustainable (too sustainable?) rhythm which survived quite well through the corners. 3s down was called at the Plough and Ditton, and with a call of "We can win this", from and probably only heard by me, we upped the pressure a touch and started eating away the metres. Through the railway bridge Tom thinks we were at our closest, having visibly closed; Clare got it back together near the finish, but too late.
I claimed to the crew that we'd won by 7s, and it seems the timers agreed with me.

Having steered surprisingly accurately on the course, I made up for it by crashing twice within 20m of the new footbrige. (Peter)

Fantastic stuff guys :). A slightly frantic start, a little on the spacky side (I probably contributed a fair bit to this!). Once we got a call on the finishes, we suddenly started settling into a steady and chunky rhythm which we held pretty nicely until the end. Awesome steering on Pete's part, took some pretty fantastic corners, and hats off to the lads for putting down an epic push in the second half of the reach! (Jeffrey)

Not as pretty as the one against clare. We beat them in the second half once again, but I felt less due to a really solid rhythm making our boat go fast and instead simply because they rowed slower than we did. Was a little worried as I thought they had closed on us and I thought their finish was right by the P&E as we dashed for the line. (Thomas)

In common with far too many races I've done for FaT, I was far more comfortable with our position towards the end of the race than some of the rest of the crew. However, this time I had a little justification, as Walton was just standing somewhere random near the finish, and we didn't actually have to beat Pembroke by 200m as Tom thought...
The result was entirely in spite of me going round the outside of Ditton (thankfully Pembroke followed me round), and mostly down to putting plenty of work through the bulk of the race, with fitness to back it up. (Peter)

Overtaken (Thomas)

I think Tom summed it up pretty well. We didn't row particularly badly or particularly well. We were just entirely outclassed by a fast LMBC four. Nevertheless, getting to the final against a brace of first crews, with an unfit midget who hadn't steered before, three guys who'd never rowed in a four before, and 2008 Mays crews of 2,3,3,4... I think is a pretty good overperformance!
Many thanks to Tom and JPD for some pretty effective coaching, and I hope all of the crew go onto great things in the next few years.

Finally, personal thanks to Tom, JPD, Flo, Sonya, and anyone else who managed to keep me between the banks and pointing the right way (most of the time) without developing any neuroses. (Peter)