Next weekend, universities from across the country head to Newcastle to do battle on the Tyne in an important precursor to the Head of the River in London, and to the summer racing beyond that. BUCS Head is an exciting opportunity for crews to prove their speed at this point in the season, and, for these Championship Eights – all of which will have big aspirations for the year to come – this race will be seen as a crucial stepping-stone.
There are some notable absences here, the most significant of which is Oxford Brookes University. Brookes recently fielded several pairs at GB Trials while also racing four eights at Henley 4s and 8s Head on the same day, still managing to dominate the Henley Head without all of their top athletes. Also absent is the University of London, who have shown great pace relative to the crews entered at BUCS Head. The results at BUCS won’t, then, necessarily be an indication of who will go on to win the Temple and PA at Henley this summer. Nonetheless, whoever wins here will certainly feel like they’re progressing along the right track.
As the entry list is so small, I’ll preview each crew before settling on a finish order prediction.
Durham University
Durham have become a real force to be reckoned with in university eights in the past couple of years, with steadily growing depth across the entire squad. Last year, Durham won BUCS Head and went on to make the Semi-Finals of the Temple Challenge Cup, losing out to a strong University of Washington crew. Durham have gotten off to a great start this season, with a win against Newcastle and Edinburgh in a pre-Christmas invitational race – a result that they repeated at Rutherford Head (though Durham were beaten by UL). Their pair of U23 European Championship sculler Levin Graf and ex-Syracuse University rower Jacopo Bertone – an Italian junior and U23 international – performed well at GB February Trials, finishing 13th overall. With great top-end talent and strength through the entire Durham squad, they’ll hope to come away with a strong win in this event and see if they can challenge UL and Brookes later in the season.
Imperial College London
Imperial College are off to a pretty promising start despite having lost a number of their top guys from last season, including Noam Mouelle, who is poised to earn a seat in the Cambridge Blue Boat. With a youthful and relatively less experienced squad, Imperial are still generating some strong results. Imperial always produce very technical units – a result of the expertise of Head Coach Peter Hardcastle and the consistently challenging Tideway conditions that force skill development. Imperial had a strong result at Quinten Head a couple of weeks ago, placing 4th overall, though rivals UL were in matched eights for the race – and ran the Imperial boys very close. Most recently, the pair of Harry Stevens and George Shaw came home as the 2nd full-U23 pair at GB February Trials – a really impressive achievement for a young boat. I think the Imperial unit will be dangerous come the summer, but likely needs more time to develop. That being said, they’ll still be aiming for the win, here, piloted by GB U23 European Championship cox, Zahir Ala. Whether they’ll have the pace to get past Durham remains to be seen.
Newcastle University
Newcastle are a consistent program that has churned out some of GB’s brightest talents (think Tom Ford and James Rudkin, for example, the stern pair of the GB World Championship-winning eight). They’ve come off the boil a little in the past couple of years, and the program is in a rebuilding phase. That being said, their characteristically savage approach to training and racing has remained consistent, building some very tough athletes who absolutely relish the opportunity to race for the Blue Star. Their results this season have likely been frustrating for the Newcastle boys – losses to Durham and Edinburgh at an invitational race series and at Rutherford Head will have knocked their confidence. It will also be fuel for the fire, however, and BUCS Head represents a real opportunity for Newcastle to find some momentum.
University of Edinburgh
Like Durham, Edinburgh has found some great form in the past couple of years after being a little off the pace in the eights in the university circuit through the 2010s. They’ve been steadily growing in confidence in the boat class, and will look to step on from their performance last season, where they were 4th at BUCS Regatta, ahead of Durham. Early results at the Durham/Newcastle/Edinburgh invitation and Rutherford Head put them behind Durham but ahead of Newcastle, so they’ll be looking to widen the gap back to Newcastle, and possibly overturn Durham.
University of Nottingham
There aren’t a huge number of results to go on here; it seems that Nottingham hasn’t spend a huge amount of time in the eight. At Fours Head, the Nottingham men laid down some really solid results in the Academic Quad category, so their proficiency in sculling boats is evident; whether that translates to great boat speed in the big boat remains to be seen. This time last year Nottingham were last in this category, so they’ll be coming in with something to prove and looking to see whether they can rise up the rankings ahead of summer racing.
Prediction
As there are so few entries, I’ll predict the placement of each boat. I can see Durham University taking the win here – they have a really strong boat at the moment that has shown great speed relative to all the crews competing. Imperial Collage will follow hot on their heels, with University of Edinburgh taking the third spot. I think Newcastle University will follow very close behind Edinburgh, but won’t have the speed at this specific point in the season to challenge for the top. I see University of Nottingham taking the fifth spot.
Good luck to all crews.
Five Man
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