Since its last major success a decade ago, the club’s trophy cabinet has hardly grown aside from a few minor victories here and there.

But it seems things are about to change for the 102-year-old club with what has been described as “one of the best ever” sets of crews now in training.

According to club secretary Bill Othams, the five crews in training look promising.

“This is certainly the case”, he said, “especially with the schoolboy crew, everything is coming along really well,”

Not only is the younger generation getting in on the action, but there has been a large influx of more experienced talent entering the club as well, with middle-aged men and women finding time outside their daily jobs to join the club.

Some are even taking up rowing for the very first time. “Combined with other experienced rowers they are all progressing successfully, and some are very good,” Othams added.

The sudden rise in talent and skill available to the club has been accredited to the membership drive that took place toward the end of last season.

Since then, more than 20 new members have joined the club. Asked whether he thought the exciting new group of rowers could emulate the success of previous Pirie teams of the 80s and early 2000s, Othams believes their future is in their own hands.

“It is up to them and the level of dedication that they have,” he said.

“They certainly have plenty of promise. We’ll just have to see how they go.”

Despite the rowing season already being halfway through, none of these rowers have yet hit the water in competition.

Being trained by Graham Fitzgerald most mornings and afternoons of the week, these promising crews will need to wait until the Masters Games in May to show their skills and prove their believers right.

Not only those inside the club are noticing the new talent lurking around. Thanks to general meetings, other clubs are certainly aware of the potential rise of the Port Pirie club. Regardless of the hype building around the club, Othams, like any good secretary, has kept the gloating to a minimum.

“We haven’t been spruiking ”, he laughed. “We’ll wait until they’ve actually done something before that”.

All there is now to do is to wait and see whether the crews can make the treacherous transition from promising to successful.