New South Wales Men Hold up End in 2004 Youth Cup New South Wales finished an ignominious 7th of nine states and New Zealand Islands in the 2004 Youth Cup held in Adelaide 9-11th July.
Each state plus North and South Islands of New Zealand field an 18 member team, 9 men and 9 women in the Youth category. Teams must compete in fours, pairs, quad, double, single and eight. The eights must have two lightweights and the double is a lightweight boat. Points are awarded 9 for a win and one point less for each place down from the winner.
This year SUBC provided 7 of the male team members plus NSW male coach ? Ed ?Latino Heat? Yorston.
Particular features of the 2004 NSW Men?s Team were bad hair, bad eyewear and some excellent performances capped off by an unexpected loss in the eights.
Highlights for NSW were wins in the Men?s Pair, Men?s Four, and a dead heat for first in the LW Men?s Double. Add to this seconds in the A finals of Men?s Eight, Men?s Pair Div 2 and a bronze in the Men?s Quad and we have NSW men dominating the men?s competition.
In men?s events NSW scored 61 points, Tasmania 53 and SA and WA 50 each. Six medals from eight events told the story of a strong all around performance but NSW failed to make an A final in the women?s events and so were denied any chance to feature in the top end of the overall trophy.
Final scores for 2004 Youth Cup, Tassie 99, WA 94, SA 85, Vic 81, NZ South 79, Qld 78, NSW 75, NZ North 72, and ACT 58.
NSW rowing needs to take a long hard look at its development policy and its management of the team process for this event. Other states have used their sub-elite development money wisely and Tasmania and WA showed that with sub-elite development money spread as targeted seed funds worthwhile overall results can be achieved.
It is totally unsatisfactory that Sydney Uni is contributing so many members to male NSW Youth Cup teams ? to have strong rowing development NSWRA needs to ensure all clubs are making this effort and should be using its available funds in this area to support programs that are bringing and will bring results.
Those considerations aside ? we should congratulate our club members on their success in their events at the 2004 Youth Cup. Damon Hietbrink, Mitch Estens, Pat Wilson, Tom Sproats, Joe Power, Harry Horwitz-Rourke and Mark Flower ? well done. Congratulations also to male team coach Ed Yorston.
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