Image Credit: Rowing Australia
Club events at the Australian Rowing Championships are a great chance for those outside of the high-performance pathway to demonstrate the strength, culture, and depth of their club. The event forbids anyone who has represented Australia at the national level or anyone currently training in the national training centres from participating, leaving the field open to the best young developing athletes and everyone’s favourite ‘clubbies’.
Melbourne University Boat Club (MUBC)
While Melbourne University Boat Club may not have been as successful as they once were at this year’s NSW State Championships, there are more than a few signs that MUBC and Matt Ryan have put together a weapon of a crew here. With Victoria single scull champion Gentili stroking the boat and other members from a silver medal-winning crew in the Victorian male open eight, plus some solid U21 talent in the bow, MUBC is a crew to watch closely. After finding incredible success last time the Australian Rowing Championships was held in Lake Barrington, MUBC will hope that this crew in this event will help them climb back to the top of the leaderboard and cement themselves as not only one of the best high-performance clubs in Victoria but one of the best in the country.
Sydney Rowing Club
With two crews entered, Sydney Rowing Club looks likely to be at the front of the field, whichever way you spin it. They seem to have entered a more senior crew, listed first and coxed by N. Rogers, and a younger crew comprised a few of the NSW U21 eight champion crew and coxed by L. Lunney. Both Sydney boats are potential champions, but the experience and strength of the former is my favourite to take out the win in the club men’s eight. Sydney have been pretty dominant against intra and interstate competition this season, especially in eights, and I expect nothing different from these crews, both coached by S. Mulvaney and B. Robertson. Don’t be surprised to see both pushing for the podium in an event which will certainly help SRC push closer to becoming the best crew nationally in the club scene.
UTS Haberfield
Coached by two legends, Mathias Ungemach and Tim McLaren, this UTS Haberfield combination also contains some U21 talent from a crew that placed second behind Sydney RC at NSW State Championships in February. Automatically, this makes them a threat to the rest of the competition, and undoubtedly, the rivalry between UTS and SRC will heat up this event as the crews battle stroke for stroke in the A-Final on Sunday. UTS will hope to upset expectations by beating Sydney and they certainly have the strength in recent history of men’s eights to be a real threat.
Prediction
Sydney will take the win with its more experienced outfit, but MUBC and UTS will challenge them to within a length, with all four boats mentioned abovewithin touching distance of gold.
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