Last weekend’s South Island Secondary School Championship typically allows us to showcase what we can achieve ahead of the pinnacle of the Secondary Schools Rowing Regattas, The Maadi Cup, scheduled for the week commencing 28 March.

Despite Covid appearing in our crew and some rowers crushed by an early exit from participation at the South Island Secondary Schools Championships, the crew went on to do exceptionally well, with an impressive medal haul with a number of crews and individual rowers also achieving personal bests.

The Maadi Cup Regatta has been altered this year, by dropping Novice events and excluding Year 9 and 10s (other than Coxswains) to reduce numbers, for Covid risk mitigation reasons. Whilst this was exceptionally disappointing for our younger crew members, they finished their season by demonstrating they are a force to be reckoned with, securing Gold in the Boys U18 Novice Coxed 8, Boys U15 Coxed 4, Silver Boys U18 Novice Coxed Four and Bronze in the Boys U18 Novice Coxed Four.

With most of the crew forced into a seven-day break at present we have to be philosophical, whilst not ideal, it does mean all going well with their recovery, the chances of crews being scratched at Maadi has been drastically reduced.

Perhaps the best summary of the success of last week’s regatta was a race call announcer, St Bede’s has done remarkably well for a crew of 45 rowers, we are in fact just over half that size at 26.

This just makes the results so much more remarkable and whilst we have our Coaching Team of Dale Maher and Scott Rogers doing a fantastic job of getting the boys to perform on the water, we could not do all of this without the commitment and support of our sponsors; Schick Civil Construction, Calder Stewart, and H3 Construction, our parent helpers and supporters.

We look forward to sharing some positive news from Maadi in a few weeks' time.

The results for medals from the SISS Championships are listed below with full results for the regatta available at http://rowit.nz/siss2022/results?cn=stbd

Gold

Boys U17 Coxed Eight- Josh Hamer, Sam Woodgate, Jack Dennehy-Coles, Luke Hickling, Thomas Woodgate, Matthew Glen, Sam Earl, Luke Mc Brydie + Max Walsh

Boys U16 Coxed 4- Josh Hamer, Luke Hickling, Thomas Woodgate, Matthew Glen + Max Walsh

Boys U18 Nov Coxed Eight- Quinn O’Sullivan, Hugo van Herel, Sam McAfee, Joseph Fitzgerald, Bede Giera, CJ Moore, Bruno Dooley, Harry Cournane + Finn O’Kane

Boys U17 Coxed 4- Sam Woodgate, Jack Dennehy-Coles, Luke Mc Brydie, Sam Earl + Max Walsh

Boys U17 Coxless Pair Oars- Luke Hickling, Matthew Glen

Boys U15 Coxed 4 - Quinn O’Sullivan, Hugo van Herel, Bruno Dooley, Harry Cournane + Dom Morgan

Silver

Boys U18 Novice Coxed Four – Sam McAfee, Joe Fitzgerald, Bede Giera, Harry Cournane + Dom Morgan

Boys U17 Coxless Pair Oars- Sam Woodgate, Jack Dennehy-Coles

Bronze

Boys U18 Novice Coxed Four – Jamie Warren, CJ Moore, Ollie Ellenbroek, Joseph Miguel-Brogan + Finn O’Kane

Personal Bests

1st B Final - Boys U17 Single Sculls - Harison Staples

5th B Final - Boys U17 Single Sculls – Neil Kamat

6th A Final – Boys U16 Single Sculls – Harison Staples