Head of the Yarra 2023 – Review

Introduction

On a thunderous day with dark skies and lightning forecast, the 2023 Head of the Yarra got underway. The first running of the event since 2019, a full race card of eights lined up to have a crack up the windy 8km course from Melbourne CBD to the new landing at Hawthorn Rowing Club. With a large number of spectators arrayed on the big bend hoping to see some exceptional racing lines the day started with the school eights and finished with the exciting showdown in the open eights. Read on for our review of all the action on the day.

Male School Eight Division 1

Winners: Xavier College VIC

Despite the initial confidence in our preview article that the title for the Schoolboy eight may be heading outside Victoria, the boys in black and red proved us wrong with a relatively comfortable 16-second win over Gregory Terrace. Equating to just over a length over a 2000m course, Xavier will be pleased with the result, especially following on from a Melbourne Head where they were behind the three leading crews. This result will give them a boost going forward, and despite Victorian Crews not being present at the National Championships this year, will serve as a warning shot for those out of state crews ahead of the much-anticipated return to Sydney for the Nationals. The field was rounded out by The Cathedral School QLD, Haileybury VIC and Hutchins TAS.

Male School Eight Division 2

Winners: St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace

This time Joey’s did follow through with our prediction and comfortably won the event by a significant margin of 83 seconds. Their time of 28:27.69 saw them beat their first crew by five seconds, potentially highlighting issues on the day for the division 1 boat, or suggesting to the coaches that they may have made an error in their line up selections. Either way, they will be pleased to take out the win in such a commanding fashion in front of Hutchins, Xavier and the ACT composite. Interestingly, the Hutchins Division 2 crew also recorded a faster time than their Division 1 crew by a minute.

Male School Eight Division 3

Winners:

                Div 3: Xavier

                Y10: Xavier

The male school eight division 3 was a straight shootout between Hutchins of Tasmania and seven crews from Xavier College. Despite a valiant effort placing them fifth in the division, they were unable to overcome the massed ranks of the Victorian school. Pleasingly for the Xavier Year 10 coach, they finished a comfortable 1:14.23 ahead of the school third VIII and six seconds clear of the school second VIII.

Female School Eights Division 1, 2 and 3

Winners:

                Div 1: University of QLD

                Div 2: ACT Composite

                DIV 3/Y10: MLC School

Due to only four crews racing on the day, the Division 1 and 3 races were uncontested with The Cathedral School QLD scratching leaving Uni of QLD to take out the win in Division 1 and MLC School rowing over uncontested to win Division 3. Division 2 at least gave us a suitably tense race with less than five seconds separating the ACT composite crew from the MLC crew. No doubt the race organisers will hope to see more entries in the female school events in 2024.

Female Composite Eight

Winner: ANU Composite

In a bit of a demolition job, the ANU composite crew took out the win in this category by over five minutes, would have comfortably won the female C grade VIII and would have only lost out in the B grade eight by a second, which fits with their B grade ranking as opposed to Melbourne and Canberra’s C grade rankings. A comfortable win, could we potentially see this lightweight combination turn up later in the season?

Female C Grade Eight

Winner: University of NSW

Male C Grade Eight

Winner: University of NSW

C grade crews are always a bit of a shot in the dark, and so it proved with the winners in both the women’s and men’s categories not being mentioned in our initial preview article. University of NSW will feel pleased to come away with the double win – a rare achievement for a club to have strength on both sides of the program at the same level. Of note was the size of the margin in both the women’s and men’s events, with 25 and 17 seconds respectively between University of NSW and Glebe in the women’s and one of our highlighted crews Toowong in the men’s. Both of these crews will return to the summer grind in NSW, and will potentially eye success at the NSW state championships later in the season.

Female B Grade Eight

Winners: Mercantile VIC

We predicted a winner from Mercantile, University of QLD, UTS and Adelaide and the former duly delivered. Following on from some strong racing at Melbourne Head the week before, the Mercantile crew came through to win by slightly over nine seconds in front of the University of Queensland and UTS. When the margin is under ten seconds, that local coxing knowledge can be so important. Even more impressively, the Mercantile crew came from the back of the field, with the crew showcasing some excellent racing skills to still come up with the win. There is no doubt that many of these crews could meet again at the NSW State Championship and the Club Eight at Nationals.

Male B Grade Eight

Winners: Toowong

An excellent display of rowing saw the crew from Toowong retain the title they had won previously in 2019. They did however come incredibly close to throwing it away to the University of Queensland, as an initial 20 second margin of victory was reduced to just 0.46 seconds after a penalty was applied. Our initial race favourites Adeliade University rounded out the top three. But with less than ten seconds between second and third and third and fourth, there was some impressive depth on display in this event. Toowong will no doubt be keen to attempt to retain their title again in 2024.

Female Open Eight

Winners: Melbourne University.

Melbourne University follow on from Toowong in being one of three crews to retain their 2019 Head of the Yarra with a dominant performance beating the crew from Sydney by slightly more than 50 seconds. Increasingly showcasing their strength in depth in women’s rowing in Australia, MUBC will be happy to have won the Head of the Yarra, more so to have beaten a strong Sydney crew into second place and local rivals Mercantile into third place. They will roll on to their summer camp and the NSW State championships with no intention to release their dominance on women’s rowing.

Male Open Eight

Winners: Sydney

We called a Sydney win with MUBC finishing in second and that was indeed the case here. An initial 10-second victory had further gloss applied to it when the MUBC crew, coxed by Australian Tokyo cox James Rook, were given a ten-second penalty. The Sydney outfit were always going to be hard to beat, and any lack of local knowledge was mitigated by the inclusion in the crew of Alex Wolf, formally of Mercantile (VIC). Of the Sydney crew; Olsson, Crouch and Wolf have all won the Head of the Yarra before and will be pleased to have seen off MUBC and Mercantile in third. These crews will no doubt return to action after the summer camps and will renew their hostilities in Sydney in February.

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