MEET THE TEAM
OUR ROWING COACHES
Nick Barton
Head Men's Coach
Nick was born in NZ’s prettiest town, Whanganui. He learned to row at school on Rowing NZ’s spiritual home, the Whanganui River. Nick illustrious rowing career saw him rowing 5 years at Otago University while studying physical education and commerce. After hanging up the sticks in 2004, Nick began work as the Rowing Development Officer for Sport Waikato for two years before really starting his coaching career by jumping in the deep end as Head Coach for Sacred Heart Girls College. Over the next decade Nick coached at Sacred Heart, Villa Maria Christchurch, Waikato University, Oxford University, UK and St Paul’s Collegiate school before taking up a full-time role in Waikato RPC in 2017. Since then, Nick coached in the RPC for five years as well as in the NZ U19 programme for 6 years. Most recently, he has coached the NZ Men’s Coxed Four at the World U23 Rowing Champs in Bulgaria. Nick is now looking forward to his second season as Head Coach of Waikato Rowing Club and is super excited by the caliber of his coaching and management team.
Martin Simoncelli
Men's Senior Coach
Martin started his rowing career in Uruguay where he rowed for Club de Remeros Mercedes for 13 years and represented his country for 6 years. His best results were 5th place in the Junior World Championship in Aiguebelette in the 4-, France in 1990 and 5th place in the U23 World Champs in Naro, Italy in 1991.
Martin moved to New Zealand in 2002 where he has coached 3 different schools, Hauraki Plains College for 7 years, Takapuna Grammar School for 3 years, and St. Paul’s Collegiate School for 7 seasons.
He has coached 3 Rowing New Zealand campaigns, Juniors in 2016 in Rotterdam -M2x and W4x, U23s in Plovdiv in 2017 – W4x and W2x and U19s in Paris in 2023, - M4x. Undoubtedly, the Junior M2x of Jack Lopas and Lenny Jenkins winning the gold medal in 2016 has been a remarkable result.
Martin holds a degree in Physical Education and currently is full-time teaching Spanish at St Paul’s Collegiate School in Hamilton.
Martin is joining Waikato Rowing Club for the first time this year and is working alongside Nick and Ben in coaching the Men’s squad mainly focusing on the Senior group.
Ben Tyson
Men's Club Coach
Ben started his rowing journey in 2011 at Sacred Heart College as a coxswain. The skills gained throughout many years of coxing have been invaluable to the knowledge being implemented as a coach at Waikato Rowing Club. Ben commenced his coaching journey with WRC back in 2017 after competing in the Men’s Eight at the U23 World Championships and has been with us since, albeit a sabbatical year. Ben coaches the club men which can be a tough but rewarding challenge. Ben completed a Bachelor of Engineering with the University of Waikato and now works for the club’s principal sponsor Schick Civil Construction. The reason Ben coaches at the Waikato Rowing Club is for the great people who are involved and to contribute to the greater good of the community.
Anna Budd DeLong
Head Women's Coach
Steve Wills
Women's Senior Coach
Anna began her rowing career at Epsom Girls Grammar in Auckland when she was a student at the school. Anna has also rowed for North Shore Rowing Club and the Auckland RPC and was part of the NZ U21 team in 2011-2012.
Anna started coaching alongside her own rowing in 2014 with Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland. Over her three seasons as the lead novice coach the group consistently produced medal winning performances. Anna shifted to Auckland Grammar for a season working with the U18 boys before becoming the lead women’s coach and then head coach at North Shore Rowing Club. In her past three seasons coaching at North Shore, she has coached several crews to podium places as well as winning nine different national titles across intermediate, club and senior for both men and women. During her time coaching in Auckland, Anna has been involved in the regional development programmes assisting with the winter RPC trial groups and coaching Auckland representative teams.
In 2021, she was the New Zealand Women’s World University Coach and was part of the Career Coach programme with RNZ and Core Knowledge programme with HPSNZ. In 2022, she was the New Zealand U21 Women’s Sweep Coach and was also selected into the third cohort of the Te Hāpaitanga scholarship program granted by HPSNZ. This program is a holistic coach development initiative designed in response to the complex and interconnected challenges preventing female coaches from pursing and maintaining a career in High Performance Sport.
At the end of 2022, Anna made the move to the mighty Waikato to coach alongside Nick Barton at the Waikato Rowing Club. She assisted both Nick and Steve with the senior level crews at the club helping to round out a successful season for the club, finishing second overall on points at the 2023 National Champs. She was then selected to coach the New Zealand U19 Reserve Women’s Single and Reserve Men’s Pair to compete at the Worlds in Paris.
Anna is looking forward to another great season at the Waikato Rowing Club and will be taking on more leadership with the women’s side of the program for the 2023/24 season.
Megan Glenn
Women's Club Coach
Steve started serious coaching in 1996 with the Marlow Rowing Club women's squad in England after being approached when erging in a gym. He was head women's coach at Marlow from 1998 to 1999, when he returned to NZ. The women's squad at Marlow numbered up to 70 rowers and ranged from world champions to novices.
On returning to NZ, he was recruited by Ian Wright to coach at St Paul's, Hamilton for the 2000-1 season. Following that season he was coaching the Waikato University novices with Peter Baddeley and carried on coaching the women's crew at Waikato for the summer season.
Steve has continued coaching the Waikato Club and RPC women's squad ever since, apart from a few years off. He has overseen 36 Waikato crews that have won NZ titles, ranging from the novice coxed four to the premier eight. He has also coached Waikato in the Great Race seven times, NZ Universities, NZ U21s and Waikato Inter-Provincial squads. This season he will be coaching our senior women.
Megan entered the sport of rowing while at St Peter’s Cambridge, winning Maadi and NISS medals during her time at school. Post-school Megan studied a Bachelor of Media Arts whilst continuing her passion of rowing through coaching at St Peter’s. In 2012 Megan took up the position of Boatman at King’s School Worcester, UK and continued to coach and repair boats at the school for 5 years. During this time Megan coached various athletes to British titles on the erg and on the water, as well as being selected as the Assistant Manager for the British J16 team in 2015 and 2016. Megan then spent 2 years as the Head Coach for a Community rowing club in Oxford, Hinksey Sculling School; coaching athletes through the British trials system and coaching athletes into the English Rowing Team for the Home Countries Regatta in 2018. Megan has joined Waikato Rowing Club in 2023 after returning to New Zealand in late 2018 to take up the position of Assistant Director or Rowing at St Peter’s Cambridge. During her time at St Peter’s Megan has coached crews to Maadi and NISS medals as well as athletes into the New Zealand U19 and North Island U18 teams. Megan coached the North Island U18 Men’s quad in 2019, New Zealand Universities Trans-Tasman Men’s eight in 2021 and the New Zealand U21 Men’s Four and Eight in 2022.
Angela Bourke
Novice Coach
Angela began her rowing career at Hamilton Girls High School. While at school Angela made her mark by winning her first red coat, being selected in the NZ Juniors and U23s and was the start of the new generation of annual teams selection to compete at the Junior World Championship albeit a small team of 2 single scullers in 1994.
At the end of 1995 season Angela was ruled out of the sport due to medical reasons that took her out of the sport till meeting up with Judith Hamilton in 2000.
She moved alliances from Cambridge Rowing Club to Star Boating Club and was selected into the NZ U23s in 2001 and Elite team in 2002-03 until being forced to retire due to a spinal injury.
Since then Angela moved from athlete to mother and manager running many Swimming and Basketball teams. Angela is a current board member for Swimming Waikato, Parent lead for HBHS Rowing and works at Waikato Hospital as Duty Nurse Manager.
Angela is coaching the Novice Women at Waikato Rowing Club a challenging but very rewarding role.
Aleisha Haworth
Manager
Aleisha has been an active member of the Schick Civil Waikato Rowing club over the last 7 years in the club rowing scene. Aleisha was appointed club captain role in 2019-2022 and has been a member of the committee since 2021. While taking on the club captain role she along with the coaching team developed the athlete committee which is proven to be a vital element in the club, developing culture, social media presence, athlete development opportunities as well as feedback to coaching and committee. Aleisha was appointed as Club Manager for the 2022-2023 season and is taking the lead again this year with support from the very experienced coaching team and wider committee. Aleisha may be seen running or biking the streets of Cambridge and in a professional capacity works as a Hand Therapist at Align Health Hand Therapy and Te Whatu Ora Waikato Hospital.
OUR S&C COACHES
Patrick Davenport
S&C Coach
I grew up in the Waikato having rowed and played rugby throughout my time at Hauraki Plains College. After high school I shifted to Auckland to study, gaining a BSc in Sports Science through Auckland University and PgDip in Coaching/Sports Science through AUT while still rowing at North Shore Rowing Club for a few more great years in the sport. I was lucky enough to work in the Athlete Development space at AUT Millennium, running a business that supported youth and developing athletes through strength and conditioning and athletic education services. Over that time I also shifted into more of a coaching role in the rowing realm, both on-water and in the gym which I really enjoyed. I led the men’s programme for a few years at NSRC and worked with Westlake Boys High a bit too. More recently I’ve had a switch up of careers into the construction industry, starting as a Quantity Surveyor, which saw me move back down to the Waikato after 10 years in Auckland. To keep myself in the game, I’ve built up my own wee coaching business in the Strength & Conditioning space where I work with a handful of individual athletes across a range of sports and lead the S&C programmes for Morrinsville Sports RFC and, of course, Waikato RC! It’s a blast to be in the gym at the Avantidrome with the team a couple of times each week and I’m super excited to see how the squad develops and performs this season!
Dalton has a vast range of sporting involvement background, predominantly in Rugby and Basketball, after shoulder injuries early on in his youth sidelined him from rugby, rehabilitation of such injuries led him down the path of strength and conditioning and becoming a well-rounded athlete, whilst focusing on performance and injury prevention. Thus, the key for him completing a bachelor’s degree in health, Sport and Human Performance, majoring in human performance science at the University of Waikato. Dalton is currently an assistant S&C practitioner with the club, helping facilitate sessions based at the Avantidrome in Cambridge. You’ll find him outside of these sessions as the Gym Manager of Club Waipa, based in Te Awamutu.
Dalton Berry
S&C Coach
OUR CLUB CAPTAINS
Seb Fulton
Club Captain
Hi my names Seb. I started rowing in 2016 in my first year at St. John’s college. I’ve had an interest in rowing from a young age and came into my first season weighing in at a whopping 50kgs being a few kilos lighter than my coxswain. After a bit of growing and a lot of hardwork I was able to finish my last 2 seasons of high school rowing with a handful of medals. I started rowing at Waikato in the 2020-2021 season. I had a break the following season then came back re kindling my passion for the sport with the help from a few awesome coaches being one of the major reasons I love this club. The competitive atmosphere and wide range of abilities within the club make it a great place to further your ability as an athlete and make some good friends along the way. I hope to have a successful season this year coming away with some medals and have aspirations to make the NZ u23’s next year. I can’t wait for this season to come and hope I can help building another strong tight knit group of athletes. looking forward to putting in some hard work and seeing what the season will bring.
I’m currently enjoying getting stuck into my third season at the Waikato Rowing Club. Prior to joining WRC, I spent four seasons rowing for Waikato Diocesan School for Girls. The move from a high school to club rowing program had its challenges but they were well worth persisting through. I soon realised it was a privilege to be around the WRC athletes who are all extremely driven, supportive, and inspiring. Alongside rowing for the club, I am completing a Law and Business degree at the University of Waikato which also allows me to be a part of the UoW Rowing Club. This season, Seb and I are looking forward to working alongside the Athlete Committee to drive camaraderie within the club. This will involve regular full-club events and opportunities with the intention of building connections between athletes of all grades.
Brooke Carter
Club Captain