With the final national head race of the year, Fours Head provides a great opportunity for big boats to see how they stack up against each other before the long winter training blocks. The Open Academic Quads will be quick as the first boat class to follow the championship events and still benefitting from some of the best conditions of the day. While crews are not allowed to include recent internationals, Boat Race athletes or Henley weekenders, the standard of rowing will be high with at least five trialists on the provisional crew lists.
Reading University BC
In the last running of this event in the autumn of 2021, Reading University dominated the entries being four of the five to take part and taking both of the top two spots. This year the sculling only programme has two boats entered into Championship Quads so this event will feature the third and fourth boats but the quality remains high. The top boat in this event provisionally features Jacob Parrington who was in the fourth fastest double at Pairs Head on this very course in early October and was the sixth best U23 at Scullers’ Head the previous month. He and his crew will be hoping to carry this good form into another Tideway head.
Nottingham University BC
A program beginning to focus their efforts on sculling, Nottingham University’s men had their best results of the summer in sculling boats and the three quads entered into this category are all the men have entered this weekend. The first boat contains some of the athletes who made it to Thursday in the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup.
Under the guidance of newly appointed Head Coach Adrian Roberts, they will be looking to build the programme further. They don’t appear to have raced so far this year, but last year managed to get the better of the third Reading quad at BUCS Regatta, a feat they will be looking to repeat despite drastically different line-ups on both sides.
Imperial College London BC
As the only institution with men’s sweep boats entered, the two Imperial College boats entered are a little harder to place in the pecking order than the others but with two trialists in the provisional line up their first boat certainly seems formidable. They were the only non-Reading boat in this event last year, finishing third, which should give the two returners from that crew some confidence.
University of Surrey BC
Last year was a boom year for the University of Surrey, as the women’s side of the club were swimming in victories but there were also some very strong performances for the men. They won the Medium Academic Pennant at the Head of the River, collected medals at BUCS and made it through a round of the Prince of Wales at Henley.
While there are a number of returners for this season, the absence of high-flying Aiden Thompson, who helped the quad to an A-Final at BUCS, will loom large. However, this on-the-rise centre should be able to produce a quick crew without the Welshman and will look to upset the more established names on the Tideway.
University of St Andrews BC
The quality of crews coming from the University of St Andrews is always difficult to nail down. An unusual exam timetable and propensity for internationals makes guessing what a full-strength squad is capable of very difficult. We did get a hint as they successfully made it out of a brutal Prince Albert qualifier at Henley before they unfortunately drew the eventual champions in the first round. But Head Coach Alan Sinclair would not be making the eight-hour drive down with his crew if they weren’t up to scratch.
Prediction
Based on recent history to predict a victory for anyone but Reading would seem foolish but with two Championship Quads entered this year, this could be less certain than before. I am going to suggest that Nottingham’s focus on sculling will allow them to break the purple monopoly on this event, forcing Reading into second with Imperial rounding out the top three.
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