Short Course
Wallingford Long Distance Sculls provides junior crews with the opportunity to row in head races early in the season – regardless of experience. It gives both a short course and a long course as a variety to suit the needs of the crew. This early on in the season it’ll be interesting to see the results from these races and what they tell us about the upcoming season!
Royal Grammar School High Wycombe Boat Club
This year’s Royal Grammar School crew did not race at Wallingford Long Distance Sculls as J14s, and as a school are unlikely to have trained together over the summer break. With this gap in training accompanied by inexperience in the course, the crews of the Royal Grammar School (RGS) are going to have to brace themselves for this fast-paced race to kickstart the season. Last year, RGS produced two similar crews for their J14 4x+, placing 35th and 36th at the Junior Sculling Head. As the season progressed they placed 12th and 24th the National Schools Regatta (Nat schools). RGS will be sending two crews to Wallingford Long Distance Sculls so we may well be seeing an in-house fight.
Mossbourne Rowing Academy
Mossbourne rowers will be competing in both the long and short distance event, their rowers travelling a notable distance to make the events. Almost a month into the school year, the boys will have likely been working hard to get time in their boats. In the J14 season, Mossbourne produced two crews coming 7th and 24th at the Junior Sculling Head last year, and 10th and 30th at NSR, suggesting that Mossbourne may be stronger during head races, and also stronger than both of the RGS crews. If Mossbourne recreates their fastest J14 4x+ crew for the long-distance race, they may do the same for the shorter event, sending a crew consisting of Taylor Nguyen, Adam Cymbalista, Daniyal Mir, Thomas Price and Cox Conor Thomson. In doing this, Mossbourne would be utilising their crew’s experience in rowing together, putting them at an advantage over any less experienced crews.
Magdalen
Off the back of a relatively uneventful season, Magdalen College placed 21st at the National Schools’ regatta which outplaces some of the RGS and Mossbourne crews. That being said, if the NSR crew of Calvin Dai as Stroke, Nicky Hopkins, Noah Massie and Maurits Branderhorst, with Jia-Ning Hu as Cox is replicated or better yet- a faster crew is produced, then Magdalen may have a chance of beating the crews that beat them at NSR, during this weekend’s race. Can they surprise us with their head racing?
Predictions
With Mossbourne sending crews to both the long and short-distance events, this has likely been strategised. On top of this, at major events like NSR and the Sculling Head, Mossbourne outlawed their competitors that will be racing this weekend, leaving them as the likely victors. It is between the fastest RGS boat and Magdalen for the second-place spot.
Long Course
The long course category, almost unsurprisingly, has similar competitors to the short course so the predictions are quite similar. The only difference is the addition of Wallingford Rowing Academy entering two crews, the strongest of those coming 3rd at NSR and BRJC in the J14 4x+. That, on top of their home-ground advantage which one would be foolish to discount, puts them in very good stead for winning the long-course race over Mossbourne.
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