Last year both the girls’ and boys’ firsts finished second, but after an off-season review the crews approach to their rowing has provided a strong lead-in to this year’s event and given the shed plenty of confidence.

Rowing director Rob Simmonds said the crews had taken a focus to fitness and injury prevention in the off-season.

He said it was crucial to have the crews not only as fit as possible, but keep them out on the water and injury-free to ensure continuity among the group.

“Last year, apart from the senior crew, we had a bit of a disappointing Head of the Lake. So we went through a big review over the off-season, put some new procedures in place, really looked after the coaches and did some seminars,” Simmonds said.

“We found that fitness was a big issue. So in the off-season during term three we had a big focus on getting them fit. A big focus on injury prevention as well. The less injury you have in the shed, the more continuity you can get.”

Ballarat High School has also enjoyed some strong results at recent regattas. The girls’ firsts claimed victory at Colac and Wendouree’s B grade while depth is strong in the boys as its seconds won the Wendouree and Ballarat regattas. Simmonds said the feeling among the group was positive.

“So we’re actually looking really good, we’re competitive across the board, we’ve had a lot of wins at early lead-up regattas so there’s a lot of confidence in the shed...a real sense of enthusiasm looking ahead to this year’s Head of the Lake.”

Simmonds said the program had lost some of its stronger senior rowers from last year, but felt there was still plenty of talent within the current crews ahead of the Head of the Lake on February 26.

“We’ve lost a few of them. but we’ve kept the cox’s on board and a couple of rowers out of each crew.”

The boys’ firsts will race from lane four while the girls drew lane three.