Ballarat Grammar’s boys’ firsts crew knows overcoming St Patrick’s College in the Head of the Lake will be a huge challenge – but it’s going to give it a “red-hot crack”.
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Grammar is widely viewed as the main threat to reigning Head of the Lake champions St Pat’s, but rowing director Sam Pullin said his crew’s intention was simply to put pressure on the powerhouse St Pat’s in the hope it can force a mistake.
Pullin said clearly his group was eager to knock-off St Patrick’s College, but he was realistic in his assessment and felt it would take something special to deny what he believes is a national-level boat.
“The intention, obviously, is to get as close as we can to them and put them under pressure, but they’re a pretty strong unit, it’s going to take something pretty strong to get past them – but we’ll definitely have a red-hot crack at it,” Pullin said.
“They are the benchmark.
“There aren’t too many cracks in them (St Pat’s), but we’ll definitely try and find something.
“Hopefully we can hold that pressure and see if they make a mistake and allow us to get as close as possible.
“And by no means should we ever discount (Ballarat) High School, they’ve definitely surprised us in the past...we haven’t seen a lot of College so I don’t know much about them.”
St Patrick’s College crossed the line more than 15 seconds clear of Grammar at the Wendouree Ballarat Regatta a fortnight ago, but Grammar was able to trim a number of seconds off that at Nagambie over the weekend.
Pullin said the gap was clearly still there, but a focus on improving the technical side of things throughout the season had begun to show benefits.
“After last season, we realised we needed to work on some technical changes to the way we row and the way we race...we’ve started to see some reward for that. Definitely a focus on some smarter, more efficient, technical gains that will hopefully allow us a stronger go at success at the Head of the Lake.
For the girls’ firsts crew, it is a new crew from what raced at last year’s Head of the Lake, with three year 11s rowing.
They will have their sights set firmly on Loreto College who, like St Pat’s, are proving the ones to beat.
Pullin said he had been extremely pleased with what he had seen from his girls.
At the Wendouree Ballarat Regatta, Grammar was 5-6 seconds off Loreto across its 2km races and at Nagambie, with Loreto not in the field, Grammar won the Female School Coxed Four Open division one.
“Our girls have got a really strong chance to make it a great race between them and Loreto.
“They’re really keen to have some success, they’re really keen to try and challenge Loreto.
“They’ve shown over the last couple of weeks that they’re capable of having a really close race.”
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