Rowing: Coach shapes golden quartet

Hawke's Bay's gold medallists in club and age group events are Jessica Turfrey (left), Georgia King, Kate Laracy and Jessica Norris. Photo / Paul Taylor

Putting four girls from four different schools in a women's club coxless quad rowing crew may be considered a task for the too hard basket by some coaches.

But not Hawke's Bay Rowing Club's Ross Webb. His crew of Hastings Girls' High School's Jessica Turfrey, Napier Girls' High School's Georgia King, Iona College's Kate Laracy and Woodford House's Jessica Norris captured gold at last week's Lake Karapiro-hosted nationals.

"They are all good mates who feed off each other," Webb, who co-coached the crew with Michael Harrison, explained.

"The top dog title in the crew has been rotating for a while now and this time it was JT's turn," he said pointing to Turfrey who returned home with three medals.

In addition to this gold, she won another with Laracy in the under-19 double scull and a bronze in the women's club single. She is a fourth-year rower and, like the rest of her crew, is a Year 13 student.

"That was my third nationals and definitely my best... I exceeded expectations," Turfrey said.

"Keeping a positive focus was the key to our success," she added.

Webb predicted Turfrey will win more medals this summer at the North Island Secondary Schools regatta at Lake Karapiro from March 18-20 and at the Maadi Cup New Zealand Secondary Schools regatta in Twizel from April 4-10.

"These girls will all split up and represent their schools at the next two regattas but I'm picking JT to do well in the under-18 pair with Erin Henare-Murton and all four to make the under-18 single final at Maadi Cup.

King, who also competed at her third nationals, believed Webb's prediction was a realistic one and if all four made the final they would finish within a second of each other.

"It would be too close to call the winner though," she added.

Laracy stroked the quad and Webb described her as "the Michael Schumacher of the crew because she drove it".

"You can put those golds down to good team work," Laracy said.

Like her mates she wasn't brave enough to pick a winner should they all make the single final at Maadi but she predicted it "would be a good fight".

"Because we're all Year 13 students we want to finish strong at this Maadi," she added.

Webb described Norris, who competed at her first nationals, as "a big improver" in the crew.

Multiple world champion Emma Twigg was the club's other gold medallist with her win in the premier women's single. Twigg was also a member of a High Performance Centre's premier eight crew which captured bronze.

The Bay's other medallists at the nationals were the Van Der Peet brothers, Stephen and Michael, who won silver in the men's club coxless quadruple sculls in a composite crew with two rowers from the Star club and the men's novice coxed eight crew of CJ Buscke, Tom Moffett, Ben McPherson, Josh Brown, Max Paku, Will Thomas, Sam Hughes, Rowan Bull and cox Tom Robertshaw who captured bronze.