The 2013-14 Rowing season has shown that the Newington Boat Shed has genuine optimism for the future successes that will come. Regularly, there were eight quads competing at Year 8 level and sometimes there were nine quads at the Year 9 level. In general, most boats were very competitive with wins being recorded and positive places achieved. The main goal was to get the students to row technically well as this is important for progress to be made next year. The Junior Eights have had an excellent season as they were consistently achieving 1st, 2nd or 3rd on most races. At the Head of the River, the Junior 3rd VIII came 3rd; the Junior 2nd VIII came 4th as did the Junior 1st VIII. This strong squad will form the basis of next year’s Senior group and with their determination, our GPS crews will be very good.

The Senior squad, whilst down in numbers, trained hard all year and committed to the task of competing at the highest level. The fours had a difficult preparation period, often only two crews were able to be boated, but they stuck to it and were competitive on the day of the Head of the River. The 2nd VIII were continually disrupted due to injury and illness but they should be proud of the way they kept going and showed terrific character. The 1st VIII also had difficult periods where they would start to show promise but a setback would occur and make it hard to maintain the 4th position that they often achieved. Their 7th place at the Head of the River will be a disappointment to them but the crew can look back on many highlights throughout the season.

Newington junior crews competed at the NSW Schoolboy championship and a number of medals were won, whilst the mini-tour to Canberra for the ACT School Regatta, showed fantastic spirit amongst our younger members for the club. At that regatta we won many races and came away with the Boys’ Pointscore Trophy.

We are already planning for next year where we will be giving our rowers the best opportunities we can to allow them to compete at the highest level. A tour to the UK is planned for a group of Senior boys where they will have the chance to race at Henley Royal Regatta and we will also arrange trips to race in Canberra.

I would like to thank all parents for their ongoing support of Rowing, as well thank the coaches for their significant time and energy in helping the boys aim to reach their potential. Special thanks go to Mr Paul Robertson for all his work behind the scenes. I look forward to the next season.

Mr Mike Partridge
Director of Rowing