Dunstan Arm Rowing Club is bound to scoop a heap of medals at the New Zealand rowing championships in Twizel next week.
Head coach Simon Smith was offering no guarantees. But he is quietly confident the club will continue to punch above its weight.
It won 12 golds at the recent South Island club championships.
"We are going in with some pretty solid results," Smith said.
"We’ve got a very strong intermediate and senior women’s squad.
"And obviously we’ve got a strong men’s senior double of Angus Kenny and Harry Wilkinson who are going well.
"And Harry is also in the club singles and is one to look out for."
"We’ve got depth throughout the squad, so let’s hope they can perform at their best and get the reward at the nationals."
Pipi Horan, Mackenzie Ealson, the two Sophie Smiths and Ella Price are all very strong rowers in the Dunstan senior group.
The nationals, which get under way on Monday, had to be transferred from Lake Karapiro to Lake Ruataniwha due to Covid.
And, unfortunately, the New Zealand elite team has pulled out of the regatta.
Some leading North Island schools have also opted out of making the trip south.
But despite the setbacks, the nationals will still attract about 800 competitors.
That is down on the 900 or so who attended the previous event. But Rowing New Zealand community and development general manager Mark Weatherall felt that was a good result giving the obvious challenges in staging the regatta.
"To be honest, we’re over the moon with the numbers but there are a few who chose not to travel due to Covid," he said.
"And our high performance athletes, and there are about 50 of them, won’t attend."
"They have a big year ahead ... but advice was taken from High Performance Sport New Zealand about the risks and an organisational decision was made for them not to attend.
"But that creates opportunities for others to win medals."
Otago Boys’ High School rowers Grayson Small and Henry Kirk have been ticking along nicely in their age group.
John McGlashan College pupils Matt O’Meara and Ollie Hamilton should go well in the intermediate double.
Columba College will take a squad of 10 athletes all of whom were medallists at the South Island club championships.
Oamaru has a huge squad of 27 competing, including a promising novice group of females and males who medalled at the South Island championships in the eights and fours. Cromwell, Wanaka and North End Rowing clubs will also be represented with a small number of athletes.
Ben Mason will have a decent shot at winning the premier single and premier double sculls titles in the absence of the New Zealand elite team.
He rows for Avon but has rowed for Otago Boys’ in the past.
