Lindisfarne rowing eight co-coaches Doc McDonald (left) and Jock Mackintosh prepare for another training session at Clive River before heading to the Maadi Cup regatta. Photo/Warren Buckland
Lindisfarne rowing eight co-coaches Doc McDonald (left) and Jock Mackintosh prepare for another training session at Clive River before heading to the Maadi Cup regatta. Photo/Warren Buckland
For the first time in its 16-year history, Lindisfarne College is entering an eight at the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Rowing Championship in Waikato next week.
The Hastings boys' school is competing in the under-17 division of the week-long championship, which competes under the banner of the supreme under-18 Aon Maadi Cup regatta at Lake Karapiro in Cambridge from Monday.
"It's exciting because it's the first and they are going quite well," says Jock MacKintosh who is co-coaching with Hawke's Bay Rowing Club patriarch Doc McDonald.
However, Mackintosh clarifies there is no assertion his proteges are the favourites to claim the under-17 crown next week because South Island contenders in Christ's College and Christchurch Boys' High School are clocking marginally faster times than them.
"The Lindisfarne boys need to be going fast if they want to get ahead of those South Island crews," says the CEO of the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park, who believes the Hastings college crew will need to make up five seconds, taking into account other variables such as lake conditions and wind, when juxtaposed with their third place on the podium of the under-17 boys' race at the North Island Rowing Championship a fortnight ago. Auckland Grammar won with Hamilton Boys' High second.
The warm fuzzies aside, Mackintosh hastens to add the teenagers, on the path to competing in the marquee Maadi Cup race next year, required considerable work to get to where they are and are a fair way from becoming the polished article.
"They were pretty rough at the start of the season and they've taken a while to come right," he explains.
So how coarse were these rough diamonds in synchronising their dipping oars?\
"Their technique needed a lot of tidying up and they were quite raw."
Nevertheless, a grinning Mackintosh reveals there's nothing like a modicum of success to become the ideal catalyst to draw the attention of rowers of an impressionable age.
"They are now becoming a little more focused so their motivation is that they want to be on the podium but it's going to be quite a challenge for them to do that at the New Zealand championship."
Something as simple as the smooth passage of the boat in the water is enough to fuel the collective energy of the teenagers.
The rowing eight discipline, Mackintosh emphasises, goes against the flow of the norm that may exist out there from a layman's perception — you know, does it become more difficult to find that symphony in pursuit of that angelic chorus?
"On the one hand, the eight is a bit easier because other people are smoothing out your poor technique but — and it's a big but — to make it more fast it's important that all eight are in sync with other.
"Imagine if eight of you are doing the same thing it can be a very powerful thing but if eight of you are all doing slightly different things that's not a powerful thing."
The Lindisfarne eight are all second or third-year rowers so last year's novices have done remarkably well to be where they are at.
Mackintosh stresses a good snapshot of the schoolboys' template is their commitment to be at the rowing shed along Clive River from 5.30am six mornings a week.
"That means you have a fairly dedicated bunch of kids and you don't usually have tossers around because they don't tend to cope with that sort of training."
It takes just one rower to play truant to throw the entire crew of its kilter, in terms of turning up for training.
"It's not like most sports where if one of you doesn't turn up it's not that big a deal," he says. "In rowing if one of them doesn't turn up the boat can't go out."
Tom Mackintosh is a crew member of the New Zealand men's coxless four. Photo/Photosport
No doubt, the seven can be split into a four, double and a single sculler to ensure the morning doesn't go to waste but the eight boat cannot float on seven athletes because three on one side and four on the other side creates an imbalance, thus propelling the vessel in a crooked line.
"That's why we get a little unhappy if someone doesn't show up."
For the record, a laughing Mackintosh says he doesn't put his hand up to make up the eight to retain his credibility as their mentor.
The novices become an insurance policy of sorts for the second-tier national under-17 boys but it tends to become messy because they are committed to their own events and there's no desire to rob them of their glory.
The Lindisfarne eight also will split into two boats (under-17 and under-16) of four at the nationals.
This year's aspiring novices have a propensity to displace any incumbents in the eight crew so complacency is out, a robust competitive environment that Mackintosh and McDonald encourage.
"They're a pretty dedicated bunch who also have two hard sessions in the gym after school and I hope they do well because they deserve to," he says.
Mackintosh has faith in the ability of his eight crew although it pays to know that the Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel is a tad slower than Lake Karapiro.
Self-belief, he says, will add some impetus to their technique to savour glory.
While he rates the eight at 7/10 in technique Mackintosh says 10/10 isn't acquired until rowers become national representatives.
"They all have little things they need to work on so if you find they are doing something wrong you tell them about it," he says, revealing they are typical teenagers who will adhere to the prescription for a while but tend to stray from the norm.
McDonald, who has coached Mackintosh, has 50 years of mentoring under his belt and is devising the training regime. School crews in just about every category of the nationals have come under his tutelage.
The Napier Boys' High crew set the bench mark by finishing runners-up in the Maadi Cup (U18) race in 2013.
Mackintosh's son, Tom, and William Sabbiston, both of Lindisfarne, were runners-up in the U16 boys' double that year.
Former Lindisfarne pupils Adam Tripp and Tom Mackintosh have gone on to represent New Zealand to show the school has a "high conversion rate". Tripp made the men's eight and Tom Mackintosh the men's four.
Two thousand competitors from 120 schools are expected to converge at Lake Karapiro and more than 10,000 fans will watch the finals from the bank, after the opening ceremony tomorrow.
