1990 NSW AAGPS Head of the River

Newington top of the class (Heather Smith, 05 Apr 1990, Sydney Morning Herald)

Sydney’s Newington College eight is the premier schoolboy rowing combination in Australia, a fact borne out by the crew’s selection to represent Australia as the Trans-Tasman Challenge for junior rowers against New Zealand later this month.

But with the 93^rd annual Head of the River regatta on next Saturday, Newington would like to focus attention on the vent itself rather than on this champion oarsmen. Bob Buntine, Newington’s senior master and assistant rowing coach said: “We don’t like to single out individual boys in what is a team sport.”

This policy, by GPS colleges over the past 15-20 years, while protecting young rowers, has also been a reason why the profile of the Head of the River event has dropped considerably. 

“Rowing seems to have slipped out of the public’s minds, and in some ways that has been good – for the schoolboys at least – but I can see that the sport itself seems to lack coverage,” Buntine said.

According to Head of the River convener, Greg Moore, the public has lost interest in all school-age events. “Coverage of the Head of the River has died right off, like all schoolboy sports,” Moore said. “Gone are the days when television stations fought for the right to stage the event and gone are the days when, in the week leading up to it, the papers would highlight a crew from each school.”

The historic Head of the River regatta in Sydney’s history – 40,000 spectators used to line the banks of the Nepean River in the event’s heyday – is unchallenged and it still draws a crowd of more than 10,000 to the river’s shores in Penrith.