Rowing: Oxford not concerned by lack of experience

Oxford coach Sean Bowden believes his crew can make light of their relative inexperience in tomorrow’s Boat Race.

Bowden has just one of last year’s triumphant line-up, Canadian Barney Williams, rowing for him this time.

Opposite number Duncan Holland, by contrast, has six of the 2005 Cambridge crew in his boat.

Bowden, who can draw on the knowledge of eight previous Boat Race campaigns, said: “We started off with a clean sheet of paper, these are the best guys in the club and we’ve worked to make the best crew out of that.

“When you’ve got a bunch of new people you just have to go through that process of getting them to understand what’s required about the Boat Race.

“You don’t have lots of time to change everything. You have to work to people’s strengths and find the best way of training to develop a winning formula by learning from the experience of training from the years before.”