Saturday morning dawned cool and blustery – not looking ideal for the Head of the Parramatta for 2004. The university heavy eight rowed from the Lane Cove River around to the start of the Head – just arriving in time for their 7.00 am start time. Pushed along by Matt Ryan in stroke ( with a headwind but favourable tide) the crew improved the margin over the other open eight from Sydney Rowing Club to finish in 12 mins and 26 seconds to Sydney’s 13 mins and 6 seconds.
In other eights the closest performers to SUBC were The Kings School who claimed 12 min 58 secs to take schoolboy honours by five seconds from St Josephs.
The SUBC lightweights rowed in the Intermediate Quad and looked technically one of the best crews on the river on Saturday. They translated this technique to boatspeed by easily taking out their category in 14 min 40 sec – just under a minute ahead of their next competitor (Sydney) in this category.
The 2004 eights win was a repeat of the 2003 win but with a more convincing margin. Crews were:
SUBC Quad: Harry Rourke, Joe Power, Ben Domensino and Nick Edelman
SUBC Eight: Matt Ryan, Mike Valli, Fergus Pragnell, Ian Allsop, Andrew Wilson, Francis Hegerty, Damon Hietbrink, Chris Clyne and Cox Robbie Williams.