As the temperatures continued to rise on a day expected to reach 38 at the Champion Lakes Regatta Centre, the home crowd became vocal as the women’s pair race came down the field.

Hannah Vermeersch and Alexandra Hagan rowed from lane 2 in the final of the under 23 women’s pair but held the favourites tag entering the race despite only rowing together in a pair for the last two months.

The race was virtually over by the 500m buoy as the Western Australian duo established a commanding five second lead over the other five crews.

It was a lead that proved far too expansive for any of the other crews to pull back, despite the best efforts from Fiona Albert and Charlotte Travers, and Emma Webley and Lucy Stephan.

Vermeersch and Hagan stopped the clock in 7:31.84 to record a 5.31 second victory and secure the national title for the Swans and WA Rowing Club.

Hagan said the pair had improved well in their two months together.

“Two months isn’t a great deal of time, but we’ve done with it what we can and I think we’ve put ourselves in a pretty good position,” Hagan said.

“The Queens Cup will be a challenge on Sunday as Victoria are stacked so it will be tough but we’ll put in a huge effort and see what happens.”

In the under 23 men’s pair final Angus Moore and Sam Hookway led all the way to win a talent filled final.

Moore and Hookway were almost two seconds ahead of the Western Australian pair of Brenday Murray and Matthew Cochran by the 1000m mark and then continued to build on the margin before crossing the line in a time of 6:50.59.

Murray and Cochran finished in second place while another Western Australian combination, Tom Gatti and David Watts, finished in third place.

By: David Polglase – Updated on: 9/03/2012