LONDON –  The men’s lightweight fours crew of Matthew Brittain, Lawrence Ndlovu, John Smith and James Thompson will line up in the A-final at Eton Dorney today, looking to pour every ounce of energy they possess  over a stretch of water 2 000m long.

Coming into the Olympics there was every indication that the crew could add a medal to go with South Africa’s only other rowing prize – secured by  Donavan Cech and Ramon Di Clemente in Athens back in 2004 – after their silver medal-winning effort at the World Cup Regatta in Switzerland recently.

“Everything’s definitely going according to plan and hopefully we can have a good race,” coach Roger Barrow said ahead of today’s event before adding that the crew has been confident, but not overly so, in the build-up to the big race.

“We’ve been pretty confident and we’ve had a good build-up,” added Barrow.  “It’s always a bit nerve-wracking about how they deal with the pressure and I think the group we’ve got   have dealt with the pressure  well.

“I think we’re quietly confident. We don’t really like people talking us up and that’s why we keep everything we do quiet,” said Barrow, referring to the fact that the crew often take their training camps far from the madding crowd.

“We will just try let the result take care of itself. It’s been our approach for some time now and the guys have that approach where they don’t say too much.”

Heading into today’s final, Barrow says that the crew needs to stick to their guns and keep to the plan a factor that he feels should see them among the top three contenders with a first-place finish not out of the equation.

“I think the biggest thing is to stick to our race strategy. We’re trying to peak the guys at the right time and if we stick to what the plan is and execute a really good race, we do believe we can be in the front there and definitely in the first three,” he said.

A medal here would take South Africa’s tally to three following the gold medal winning heroics of swimmers Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos which would equate to a quarter of the goal set by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee.

Here’s hoping.