Here comes the Henley Royal round up post for the mens. My favourite bit of Henley? The commentators confirming Messrs Mitchell, Fabien and Ben, are indeed brothers. Sublime. But for something which goes a bit more into to it, we turn to Coach Joe [editor: don’t leave us! SNIFF]. Here’s his assessment:
‘Long chats were had about which boats we would focus on for the Royal Henley campaign, a men’s eight, a four and an eight, a couple of fours, what to do….Following on from Head of the River we decided the best approach was to break the eight into two matched fours and do some “non-competitive (yeah right), side by side rowing” – a tactic that gave us a look at any number of combinations.
A day of exciting seat racing demonstrated that we had a closely matched group of rowers and that the coach does love a spreadsheet.
From there we picked a four for Met and Marlow, aiming for some good time trials and getting a crew pre-qualified. This tactic worked and our first four pre-qualified for the Wyfold. Training alongside he “A” four, the “B” four felt there was a chance they could sneak in, so decided we’d have a crack on Friday. It was a great experience for all, and despite missing out, we all thought the trip was worth it, the guys know what they have to do next year.
Come Tuesday, the guys in the “A” four were ready to race. The ergs done, the sweat sweated, the guys were prepared. Knowing the guys alongside us were 9 seconds faster than us the last time we met, the plan was to go out hard and see how the opposition handled a bit of pressure, and go out hard we did, and for a while there it had the desired effect.
Northwich were surprised to see us take an early lead and they nearly collected the booms in an attempt to overhaul us. Still with our noses in front, the guys from Northwich applied the power and crept ahead by the barrier. We gave it our best shot but were overhauled by superior power and grunt.
The debrief was positive and the message was clear, we have a competitive group, and are within reach of the later rounds. Next year!’
Perfect. What more can I say? Well done lads. That will do it.
