Scotch College

A very sweet win

The 1st VIII has broken a 30-year rowing drought.

Words: GREG BAKER • CHAIRMAN OF ROWING

The Scotch 1st VIII held off a determined Melbourne Grammar School crew to win the Australian Champion Schoolboy VIII title by a margin of 2.6 seconds, and take the Barrington Cup for the first time. The last time Scotch won the Australian title was in 1978 – 30 years ago – and the Barrington Cup was first awarded in 1984.

In all, Scotch crews won one gold and two bronze medals at the championships.

Late on the afternoon of Friday 7 March, 27 schoolboy crews from around Australia lined up for the six heats of the Champion Schoolboy VIII on the Olympic rowing course at Penrith, NSW.

With the first two crews in each heat going straight through to the semi-finals, competition was always going to be cut-throat. The first heat saw the top crews from Melbourne and Sydney drawn together – Scotch, Melbourne Grammar, Shore, King’s (the defending champions) and the Shore 2nd XVIII.

Having narrowly beaten Scotch at the NSW State championships by a margin of 0.73 sec, Shore went into the event as favourite. However, the Scotch crew jumped out from the start to take a narrow lead at the 500-metre mark. The crew then pushed away in the third 500 metres of the race to lead by about two-thirds of a length at the 1,500-metre mark, and held this through to the finish in a fast 5 minutes 52.11 seconds, with a winning margin of 1.96 seconds.

In the semi-final, the Scotch crew took a lead of nearly two lengths at the halfway mark and went on to win from St Joseph’s by 5.16 seconds in the time of 5 minutes 51.94 seconds – the fastest of the semi-finals.

The final saw Scotch line up against Shore, St Joseph’s and King’s from Sydney, and Melbourne Grammar and Brighton Grammar. Scotch took an early lead from Shore with Melbourne Grammar in third place. At the halfway mark, Scotch led by about two-thirds of a length from Shore with Melbourne Grammar third. In the third 500 metres, MGS pushed up to second place but Scotch went away to win by 2.60 seconds from Melbourne Grammar, with Shore third and St Joseph’s fourth. The winning time was 6 minutes 00.04 seconds.

It was fitting that Mike Sim, coxswain of the 1978 crew, was there to witness the event. He commented: ‘Having watched the crew train and race all season, I have been very impressed with their commitment and focus; even so, I was still toey at the start of the race, and ecstatic at the end’. Coach Jeff Watt commented: ‘That was a very sweet win. We have come close in recent years and it was great to beat the Sydney schools on their own course. The boys performed at an extremely high level over the weekend and deserved their success’.

Scotch crews also won two bronze medals at the championships. The 2nd VIII of Nick Jarman (bow), Will Kitchen, Emile Breidahl, Charlie White, Angus Hope, Matt Lloyd, Johnny O’Brien, Rob Sartain (stroke) and Stuart Sim (cox) repeated the performance of last year’s crew in winning bronze in the Champion Under 19 VIII event. Throughout the regatta, the crew defeated a number of other first eights and acquitted themselves with distinction.

A bronze medal was also the result in the Champion Under 17 Schoolboy VIII event, where our crew finished third behind Shore and Sydney Grammar, with Carey Grammar fourth. Stroke of the Year 10A crew, Andy White, was ineligible to row in this event, and James Davies took his place. The crew was Alistair McLean (bow), Ed Wiencke, Will Emmett, Henry Thomas, Alex King, Damien Lipshut, Harrison Phillips, James Davies (stroke) and Stuart Sim (cox). GS