Hereford Rowing Club member Jamie Coombes has been enjoying an outstanding summer.

Coombes represented his club along with his Monmouth crewmates in a composite to win a Gold Medal at the 2010 National Championships in Strathclyde.

Having not qualified for Henley, the quad scullers Alex Butler, Tom Penny and Louis Paterson, along with Coombes and coach John Griffiths, were determined to make up for the disappointment of Henley and did it in spades, beating crews that featured at Henley Royal Regatta.

In a superb example of front running in the sixboat final in Glasgow, they grabbed an early lead and held off all challenges to win by a length from the Welsh national squad crew in six minutes 20 seconds, with the likes of top rowing universities Newcastle and Bath behind, plus Leander and the Lea RC.

Then half an hour later, Paterson and Coombes were out again in the final of U23 doubles, taking silver behind Newcastle University.

Coombes was then picked for the England team at the Home Countries Regatta in Cork, Ireland, while Patterson was picked to race for Wales.

And things just continued to get better as Coombes went on to win in the England quad at Cork. He was rowing in the two seat and helped the English crew to win with a very impressive time of 6:05, about five seconds in front of Ireland who, in turn, were five seconds in front of Wales.

Closer to home, in the Bewdley Regatts, another Hereford crew had cause for celebration.

The Men’s IM2 Crew had had victory snatched from them several times over the last year having come up against tough competition.

The original crew at IM3 level had a difficult year after losing a crew mate at the start of the year.

Jim Williams stepped in, rejoining Hereford club despite having done little rowing since being a junior member several years ago.

He retained his points, however, and this put the whole crew up a status in the IM2 category.

After weeks of hard training, the crew of Williams (stroke), Renier Crouse, Kevin Yau, and Tristram Lee-Jones, coxed by Williams'

daughter, Jordan Williams had one of the first races of the day but convincingly beat Brignorth by three lengths in the first heat.

They then won again against Oxford City by 1¼ lengths, and finally met Stratford-Upon-Avon in the final to win the IM2 title.