I sat down with a member of the St Ignatius Riverview’s First VIII from the 2025 season which went undefeated winning the ‘Grand Slam’ of NSW State Championships, Australian National Championships and the AAGPS Head of the River. It was certainly a successful season looking back. Nonetheless, the culture and mentality of this crew are noteworthy beyond their results. It’s one cultivated in mateship, hard work and humility. I talk with Zachary Hyde about his journey thus far in the sport and the key moments that defined the season.
What did success mean to you this season and do you think you’ve achieved it?
The season began for us with the same goal as every other GPS school: to put our bowball in front at Head of the River.
That was our Everest and what we were working towards since the start of the season. Everything that we achieved before was a stepping stone towards that goal and we were super process-driven towards what counted for us. Thus, winning that race meant we had achieved our goal of having our best performance on the big day and the success we had before and after was an added bonus.
When did you realise that your crew was going to be very competitive?
Obviously, you don’t know how it will go until you have your first race. But, even beforehand, leading up to the first regatta, we knew we were going to be competitive.
We had good numbers on the erg and in the gym, and the athletes returning to the crew and coming through the programme were of high caliber. Although we had room to improve, the early days on the water felt very promising too, as everyone gelled together really well.
Despite our perceived good form in training, we always approached each and every race with immense respect for our competition, knowing its First VIII racing and everyone is there with the goal to win.
Have you ever faced self-doubt in the sport and how did you deal with it?
I have definitely faced self-doubt in the sport, which might seem surprising given our early success in the season. Expectation as the season progressed developed to a point where a bit of head noise found it easy to creep in as many crews have had successful seasons only to lose it all when it really counted. Despite this steady increase of external pressure, we had absolute faith in each other, forming unbreakable bonds with teammates. We trusted our training and our coaches, who guided us to stay internal and this process helped to squash any negative feeling as we got closer to the big dance of Head of the River.
What do you think set your crew apart from your competition?
There’s probably a few things that come to mind when thinking about why we went fast. I think the technique we rowed with is the defining factor.
Other elements such as the puzzle pieces of certain members falling into place for this one season and the way we held ourselves on and off the water I think come in second to the way we rowed. The first thing that comes to mind is efficiency, doing as little as possible to slow the boat down. We always focused on keeping things as simple as we could and centred on doing the basics really well and recognised that we didn’t have to do fancy drills or anything like that. We knew if we got the simple things correct, everything else would fall into place. This allowed us to reap the benefits of our physiology being a tall and strong crew.
Looking back, what are some of your fondest memories from the season and schoolboy rowing?
Although the success we had throughout made for some unforgettable experiences, my fondest memories stem from our camps and sleepovers at the shed, long chats with some of my closest mates as the kilometres on the water and shared suffering through training brought us together as a team. Our ability to switch on and off from training allowed us to truly enjoy these moments and kept our spirits high while also being able to perform to a high level on the water.
Talk us through Head of the River day.
Every step of the process throughout the season was aimed at having our best performance on the day. It was easy for the pressure and the nerves to mount up and what our coach said to us was “if you have to do anything different on the day you have already lost”.
We reassured ourselves in trusting everything we had put into the season. We rowed down the course in the morning before the race, doing some visualisation and going through our race calls, solidifying what we wanted to do when the moment came. Off the water prior to warming up, we kept things light and were having a chat and laugh. We then boated and repeated the same warm up and drills we had done thousands of times before, our builds up to pace and a few starts and we were ready to race.
The race was far from unusual and we came out of the blocks really fast, moving away from the field as we’d done all season. As we came into the final 500m I could see all the crews in my peripheral vision and we were engulfed in the noise of the crowd and in a space of time that felt like nothing at all we had won Head of the River.
Finally, if you could leave the readers with one quote or bit of motivation that helped you this season, what would it be?
Trust your mates. Trust your coaches. Trust the process.
