Following such a successful 2004 season, 2005 was always going to prove difficult for the girls' 1st rowing squad.
However, I started in September 2004 with the new squad of girls in optimistic mood, despite seven of last year's squad of ten having left Monkton in July. Three of last year's squad seemed keen to push on and achieve, and training started well with some good new girls, who showed much potential, despite never having rowed before. We really need them to start rowing much earlier. Sarah, the Gap year student supervised land training and the girls were recording some good ergo times with two girls beating the quickest 2k test times from last „„y„ear's squad - very impressive stuff. However, the more experienced girls did not seem to be enjoying the training and by the Christmas break we had lost all three of them; without their experience it was always going to be a struggle for the new converts to rowing to compete at the top level.
With the start of the Lent Term I appointed Gen Bailhache as Girls Captain and this had had immediate affect on lifting the spirits of the squad. She also went to stroke in the Girls 1st IV and it started to look like a crew capable of winning a few regattas, we seemed to be making some progress at last. I took over land training as Sarah had left the school at Christmas. Things looked good for a couple of weeks, and then we lost our second strongest girl to a back injury from a skiing accident during the Christmas holidays; now we were really struggling. Despite Gen's efforts and enthusiastic approach to her training, things were going from bad to worse. We should have raced two coxed fours at the Gloucester Head of the river race in March but only Gen and I raced in Single Sculls for Bluefrairs.
Avon County Schools Regatta was cancelled. Bradford-0n-Avon RC's Regatta at Coate Water Park was to be our first race as a four. The four lacked consistency owing to inexperience (two of the girls only started rowing in September) but had a good turn of speed with Gen „lifting the crew from the stroke seat. They were on the river at 6.30 am the Thursday before Coate and had their best row to date - they looked good. Coate Regatta 2005 will be remembered as the wettest day of the year with the Regatta having to be cancelled as some of the younger competitors were in danger of suffering from hypothermia. The girls raced early before the cancellation of the regatta and rowed very well, winning their heat of womens novice coxed fours and beating two other crews easily, one being Canford 'A'. It was a very good first race and the only crew standing between them and a Regatta win was a good Bath University crew; it would have been an exciting final.
Sadly this row did not give them the lift I had hoped for and politics within the boat stopped them from realising their full potential. However, they did record a win in WJ18 4+ at Tewkesbury Regatta bringing the total number of wins for the girls first squad to ten for my three seasons at the helm, thus re-establishing the importance of girls rowing at Monkton.
The good news for girls rowing is that there is an excellent squad of young oarswomen training hard and enjoying their sculling and, thanks to the generosity of the Bluefriars Trust, they now have a brand new racing VIII to move into when they move from sculling to rowing. I have pushed hard for this boat for two years as I felt the School had to show a committment to top class girls rowing. It was, however, the Bluefriars Trust which has shown the commitment, and the girls squad and I are very grateful for this.
The highlight of the season for me was watching Gen Bailhache and Emma Laws race twice over 2,000 metres at the GB National Championships in Nottingham in the WJ18 2- event. They qualified for the final, during which they recorded the fastest 500m time of the whole event, and were technically the best crew in the race. They led the final to 750m and looked superb, but paid the price for only having rowed together for 10 weeks. 12 months ago „Gen was having operations on her feet and Emma left Monkton at Christmas and didn't start training again until mid May. Compare this to the„ Reading Rowing Club crew who won the gold medal. They won the silver in the same event last year and have rowed and raced together for two years. All three medal winning crews are GB Junior squad crews who train at least 10 times per week, we only had 20 training sessions together in total. Considering this it was an amazing achievement by the girls, and they are to be congratulated.
It was the first final that the girls squad have reached in the National Championships for at least five seasons.
I have enjoyed coaching the girls 1st squad for the last three seasons, we have shared great highs and some lows, but overall it has been lots of fun despite the hard work. Last season the girls 1„st VIII finished 148/300 crews in the Womens Head of the River Race. This was a tremendous achievement for a School Boat Club, especially one as small as ours.
If we are ever to better this result and compete at the National Schools Regatta with a medal chance in Championship Girls Fours or Eights there has to be more time devoted to training, (at least as much as the opposition) and we have to have a much larger squad of experienced oarswomen.