2008 South Australian Schools' Head of the River
The following story on the regatta comes from Phil Mangelsdorf.
St Peters College and the Walford Anglican School again won their Head of the River races in an impressive display of top class schools rowing racing on a perfect day of weather for competition at West Lakes Saturday.
For St Peters College it was their fourth title in a row winning the Gosse Shield for the schoolboy first eights.
The Walford schoolgirls first eight won the new Florence Eaton Cup for their second title in a row and the Pembroke School were the unfortunate losers, finishing second in both title races.
In the boys final race Pembroke led by about a metre after 500 metres, ahead of St Peters and a similar small distance back to Prince Alfred College in third place and Unley High just as close in 4th.
By the half way mark Pembroke and St Peters were almost level in front but they had made a clear water break away from the rest of the field. St Peters raced the third quarter of the race as the “championship quarter” to take the lead by about half a boat length with 500 metres to go and then turned on a classy display of skills and power and with a superb timing and bladework raced away from a talented field and win by a boat length from Pembroke with PAC a distant third. Unley finished 4th and Pulteney 5th.
In the girls title race there was a similar close start with Pembroke and Wilderness sharing an early lead after 500 metres with Seymour and Walford locked together only a few metres behind. Wilderness held a slender one metre lead at half way from Walford who were only one metre ahead of Pembroke and a similar small margin to Seymour.
Walford then turned on a super powerful third quarter of their race and took the lead in an impressive burst of speed to take the lead and control of the race. Walford appeared to tire in the closing stages of the 2000 metre race and Pembroke finished off their race really fast and were overtaking Walford to have their boat overlapping by about half a length at the finish line. The Seymour College stormed home and overtook Wilderness to grab third place whilst Annesley finished fifth, a good result in only their second year in the competition.
Walford won a new Florence Eaton Cup because the original trophy was replaced this year as the old cup had fallen in to disrepair.
Walford girls won another new trophy when they took out the girls second eight winning the Adelaide High School Centenary Trophy presented for the first time today by Adelaide High who hosted this 2008 regatta in this, the school’s centenary year celebrations.
Pembroke had some consolation for their first eight losses winning both the boys and girls first fours titles and also the boys year 10 quad sculls whilst PAC won the Wallman trophy for the boys second eights for the first time for 5 years.