Fours Head 2022 – Open Championship Coxless Four Preview

In under a week, hundreds of fours and quads from across the country and abroad will descend upon the Tideway for a gruelling race over the Championship Course. A storied event, Fours Head attracts talent from across the rowing spectrum – from juniors just getting started in the sport to seasoned international athletes.  

At the top end, it’s always a fierce battle between established senior national team athletes representing their home clubs. This makes for some fascinating intra-squad competition for the guys at Caversham, and represents a great opportunity for athletes from clubs and universities to test their speed against the country’s best.  

This year’s Championship Coxless Fours category sees a range of crews – some stacked with current World Champions, others comprised of club guys keen to best their rivals. This preview will focus on the crews that I see taking the top few spots, with mention of some others at the end.  

Leander Club (M)

This Leander boat will be very difficult to beat. World Champions Tom Ford and James Rudkin make up the stern pair – matching their positions from the GB eight that went unbeaten in the 2021/22 season. Will Stewart, World Champion in the GB four, sits at bow, and Matt Rossiter, Tokyo Olympian from the four and recent winner at the GB November trials, takes the two seat.

Stewart and Rossiter have certainly become coxless four specialists, which is important given the relative difficulty of the boat class. Rudkin and Ford have rowed as a unit for so long at this point that their rhythm represents a very significant obstacle to overcome for any other crew. This Leander boat is probably the one to beat.  

Oxford Brookes University BC (C)

This is a four made up purely of guys that rowed in the GB four this past season. Freddie Davidson, former Cambridge President and paragon of technical, composed rowing, made waves in the stroke seat last year with his unflappable resoluteness, dispatching the much higher-rating Australian Olympic champions with relative ease. He’s undoubtedly on the cusp of becoming a real icon of the sport.

Joining him in this Brookes boat are crew-mates David Ambler, Sam Nunn and Matt Aldridge. Nunn was a mainstay of the GB four last season, after recovering from injury in the 2020/21 season. Aldridge, another Brookes-bred powerhouse, rowed in the four until the World Championships, where an unfortunate illness led to super-sub David Ambler taking the three seat. It’s a true testament to the unparalleled depth in British Rowing at the moment that the boat still calmly and cleanly took the win over such an experienced field.

Given all these guys have performed so incredibly in the four this past season, they certainly shouldn’t be overlooked. They’re still the younger, newer athletes compared to the Leander boat, though, and I think Leander will probably pip them to the post.  

Oxford Brookes University BC (D)

This is a fascinating Brookes lineup formed of two current Caversham athletes – Sam Bannister and Oli Wilkes – and two current Brookes students – Matt Heywood and Jack Prior. Heywood and Prior rowed an incredible race at November trials to take second – an unbelievable result considering their relative experience compared to a lot of the opposition. They’ll go into this race with absolutely nothing to lose, but with a fantastic opportunity to see how close they can get to the top Leander and Brookes boats.

Bannister and Wilkes are both incredible athletes who were unlucky to be on the wrong side of selection for the World Championships boats last season. They’ll be eager to make the step up and prove their speed. While I don’t think that they’ll have the power to match those top two boats, they’ll likely also be looking at the Leander (D) four, which is also loaded with talent. If they can come out ahead of Leander D and get close to Leander (M) and Brookes (C), that will be a huge result.  

Leander Club (D)

This second Leander coxless four will be certainly be no slouches. Felix Drinkall and Lenny Jenkins are reunited here after a great run at November trials to take third. Jacob Dawson, a Tokyo bronze medallist from the eight who took last year out, won the event with Matt Rossiter in a brilliant comeback. James Robson, a Leander mainstay, takes the last seat here.

All of these guys will feel like they’ve really got something to prove here. Most are on the cusp of Caversham, while Dawson will be looking to get straight back to business with the national squad. I’m not sure that they’ll have the speed to keep up with the top two fours in this category, though. That being said, Dawson is never one to discount, Drinkall and Jenkins are very much rising talents, and Robson is an absolute unit – so there’s all to play for.  

Oxford Brookes University BC (E)

Brookes’ third entry here is a mostly-student lineup, featuring current students Toby Lassen, Louis Nares and Odhran Donaghy, joined by prominent lightweight rower Jamie Copus. These are all fantastically talented young athletes. Lassen and Nares competed in the pair at November trials, placing 12th and starting their season very positively. Both competed at the U23 European Championships in Belgium over the summer. Irishman Odhran Donaghy was part of the formidable Brookes Temple eight, and performed pretty well in the single at November trials. Copus needs no introduction – he’s been a part of the Brookes programme for years and has been at the top of the British domestic sculling scene for some time.

These guys will race really hard to mix with the top boats, and they might just have the resolve and the aggression to surprise some people here.  

Others

Elsewhere in the category, two Molesey entries feature some pretty big names, including Paralympian and World Champion Ollie Stanhope and UL superstar Isaac Workman. They’ll be keen to dispatch other club entries from Lea RC and Marlow RC.

Crabtree RC feature some former Oxford and Cambridge Blues – Ben Aldous on the Oxford side and Charlie Fisher for Cambridge – alongside former Goldie rowers Reggie Mitchell and Tom Strudwick. A great unit on paper, but probably a bit out of practice.

There’ll be a bit of a battle between Oxford University and Cambridge University, too; though these are lower fours from both clubs. Still, some great athletes in all these boats that will be eager to see how close they can get to Olympic-calibre boats.  

Prediction

I see Leander (M) taking the win here, followed closely by Brookes (C). There’ll likely be a bit of a gap beyond that, but I’ll go out on a limb and call Brookes (D) to come out ahead of Leander (D).  

Good luck to all crews.  

Five Man  

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