The New South Wales Championships are one of the final great tests of mettle for any crew before the National Championships in March, and with them come some of the most exciting and hardest-fought races of the Australian season. This year’s field features international stars, including an Olympian. This year’s men’s coxless four, with crews journeying to join the fray from Melbourne and Tasmania, makes for a nice change from last year’s field, which had only four entrants, all of which dressed in the light blue of Sydney Rowing Club.
Melbourne University Boat Club Composite
A composite of Melbourne University and UTS Haberfield Rowing Club is a combination of youth and experience, and all this crew knows how to perform at the top level. This crew has won races both together and racing against each other. All of them featured in the elite eight at last year’s NSW Championships, taking silver and bronze between them. Winston Hooper of MUBC and Joshua Wilson of UTS have been a strong pairing this year, winning the U23 pair at the NSW Small Boats Regatta and the open pair at Ballarat. Beyond strong performances in Australia, this crew has significant international experience, with Hooper and Wilson both representing Australia at the U23 and U19 World Rowing Championships in 2025 and 2022, respectively. This crew also features Olympic reserve Rohan Lavery and Olympian Paddy Holt, who raced in the pair in Paris and won bronze at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade in the eight.
North Esk Rowing Club Composite
This is a composite formed by athletes joining from Adelaide University Boat Club and Mercantile, whilst the other half, from North Esk (Matt Dikkenberg and Jack Barrett), competed and won only last week at the Tasmanian Club Championships. However, in this case, it must be noted that while they performed well, it was a race against themselves, with the only other entry scratching. Continuing with Dikkenberg and Barrett, they were also part of the North Esk crew that won bronze in the coxless four at last year’s Australian Championships, in addition to racing for Tasmania in the interstate eight. Joining them from Adelaide University, Hamish Allan has also seen great success this year, winning in the pair, eight, and coxless four at the South Australian Championships, and beating his new Tasmanian crewmates as part of South Australia in the interstate eight. Rounding out the crew is Jake Polkinghorn of Mercantile, another experienced athlete, who raced in 2023 in the Victorian youth eight, and in 2024 at Henley Royal Regatta, in Mercantile’s Wyfold Challenge Cup crew, which made the quarter finals. More recently, Polkinghorn was part of the Mercantile crew that won the four at this year’s Wendouree Ballarat Regatta and bronze at last year’s Australian Championship in the U23 four.
Sydney Rowing Club
Sydney has been all-conquering of late, and now, riding off immense success at last year’s Australian Championships, they will be keen to continue their impressive run. While having fewer entries than last year, with only two fours, they are both very strong, with almost all of these athletes forming part of the crews that won Sydney gold and bronze in both the club and open eights. Among these two crews, there are standout athletes in their strong lineups. Miles Harrold was part of the coxed four at the U23 World Rowing Championships in 2024, and Macarthur Bucknell was invited to the U23 National Selection Trials in 2025. Sydney is a club truly blessed with an incredible depth of talent and experience, and it is hard, at least externally, to pick a frontrunner between these two crews. The crew stroked by Harrold is probably the strongest, as more of this crew generally appears in Sydney’s higher-placed crews. As Sydney proves time and time again, they are more than capable of producing number two boats that can match any club’s top outfit.
Prediction
1st Melbourne University Boat Club Composite
2nd Sydney University Boat Club – Miles Harrold
3rd North Esk Rowing Club Composite
It’s hard to put any crew that contains an Olympian anywhere other than on top of the podium, although whether someone can take the fight to them will be something to behold. From there, off Sydney’s run of form, I am sure there will be at least one light blue crew on the podium, if not two, though I think North Esk is strong enough to round out the medal positions, holding off their second crew. Banks Rowing Club and Mercantile’s full crews are also strong, and there is a real possibility Mercantile, especially, could finish in third. I think the second Sydney crew will take fourth, with Banks and Mercantile fighting it out for the rest.
