The Club's Results

With the discovery on Tuesday that Matt's forearms weren't up to holding onto the blade for more than a few minutes, an emergency substitution was necessary. Strawson was called up and, after a swift practise on Wednesday (to ascertain that we weren't going to sink) we were ready to race. We think we rowed quite well; catches were mostly going in, we were moving together surprisingly well given the 4 (or 5) potentially different styles of rowing, and both rate and power held together well; the strokecoach failed to record, but Joe said we were at 34+ throughout, 36 down the reach, and 40+ from the railway bridge onwards. The fact I didn't really believe him after the race is most of what makes me think we were rowing quite well.

Sadly my steering was significantly below my usual standard, wandering quite wide on Ditton in particular. Not assisting me was the power difference; even if I went ghost pressure, Strawson could pretty much keep the boat straight on his own... Apparently Maggie went wandering at various parts of the course, but that's not really much consolation.

Anyway, time for fireworks parties. Overall, we would probably have gone a bit faster with some training, better steering and a bit more length, but there's no reason to think Maggie didn't have an extra level if they'd been really pushed. Well done to them, I at least underestimated how fast they were going to be, even after watching them cover 2k in an uncontested race 20s faster than any other crew on Monday. 4 weeks to get the work down and get back where we belong. (Peter)

The guns have recovered, and are hungry for more. (Gonzo)

We underperformed for this race, mainly through nerves I feel, losing to the defending champions that we met last year in the final.

The draw strokes were messy but the crew managed to recover from them quickly but, as we expected, Downing took at least 1 length off us from the start.

We managed to find our rhythm and hold Downing around the kink, and we may have even made up a tiny amount of ground as we hit our cruising speed but now and again the rhythm would go and Downing slowly opened the gap from between the kink and the bridge.

After the bridge we had a good period where the boat really found its rhythm again but by that stage our lack of high rate work started to show and the rowing became really scrappy towards the end, Downing continuing to open the gap, with us suffering a mini-crab in the final straight.

We have rowed together better beforehand and I think at this stage the crew has a good platform on which to build to then go out and defend the championship for the Fairbairns IVs race. (Mark)

WON :- D yay!!! (Charlotte)

Just saw the result - terrific! (Mark)

Firstly, I felt the need to add the "easily" to the end of the report, because it amused me. Anyways, as for the race, we were dropped a touch of the start, Aaron reckons about a seat, but a solid settle to about 34 led to us creeping back to about level by the kink, maybe a touch up. At this point I called our first push (I think, to be honest I can't really remember), and they dropped away rapidly. By the railway bridge we had clear water, which enabled me to cut shamelessly across their line and head straight for home. They kept on dropping back, and sat at about 3-4 lengths back up until the line. The really noticeable thing about this race was the effectiveness of our rowing, there were only a few strokes that I pinged as being a bit crap, and they happened when we were well up, when I can forgive the girls for not really pushing :). I was also enormously impressed by the commitment through the first two thirds, which enabled us to ensure that the race was as good as won by just beyond the railway bridge. All in all, a pretty good row, maybe a touch more speed and togetherness off the start needed, but other than that, an excellent result :) (Swords)

Well done!!!
All the best luck for tomorrow, girls!! (Ulrike)

To be honest, they were quicker than us, much as it pains me to admit it :-) They had taken about a length out in the start, not helped by a minor voyage to the meadow side on my part, pushed out to about 2 lengths by the railway bridge, at which point a last ditch push held them until about the P&E when we kind of died. Oh well. Their second IV was medium to very spactastic so had we chosen to race in the second division we'd have done better, but there'd have been less point in that. I certainly gained some much needed race practice and we probably learnt a lot from racing the best women's IV on the river. Still, as an eight we're looking fast for Fairbairn's. Turbokeen. (Swords)

M3a set off in good spirits for round one against Queens M2. After a few shuffles this week and some difficulty getting full crew outings we were a little underprepared for the race, but had been making good progress and felt confident that the race would be a close one.

We had a really solid paddle down, better than paddling in previous outings in fact, and a good warm up with strong bursts and practice starts. The race start was strong and powerful, rating up to 40 and settling onto a steady 33 with good cover. By the gut the two crews were on station and things were looking good. However, grassy really knocked the rhythm and despite a scrappy restart and Queens' very dodgy steering we gave up a few lengths on Plough reach.

Rounding onto the reach we were met by a stiff head/crosswind. Again Queens took an abysmal line around Ditton but whilst we began to really tire and let the rate drop, they produced an extremely effective wind and closed rapidly overthe last 600 metres, finishing with overlap.

A disappointing result but nevertheless a useful first race - we had our best paddling, start, and 1000m of rowing so far... just a pity we weren't able to keep things together for the second half of the race! Hopefully we'll be back together for Fairbairns! (Emma)

This was the first time that the crew had rowed together, after not having any outings for 2 weeks. Raph also kindly subbed in and was rowing on the wrong side.
Bearing in mind that we had only one practice start before the actual race, the result wasn't too bad.
A couple of air strokes during the drive phase caused the boat to veer off course during the start and slowed us down greatly, giving christs an early lead. They were then able to push off us down the reach and took 3 lengths, which we held them at...
The rowing was generally in time, but fell apart towards the end of the race. Fitness needs to be worked on! All in all, not too bad... and Christs were absolute beasts anyway! (Alex)