AFTER recent history of being on the wrong end of shock Boat Race results, Nick Brodie fears rivals Cambridge have "finally woken up" to their outdated training programme.

The Oxford cox, from Shrivenham, admitted his surprise at Cambridge's strong finish to Saturday's University Boat Race, and believes the previoustwo years may have opened their eyes to their old failings.

Brodie, from Shrivenham, said: "We were expecting them to fold later in the race, if we were still with them but for once they came on even stronger.

"I suppose at last they have woken up to the fact their old training programme was no good and made changes to improve things this time round.

"The race was going just as we had planned but theur finish surprised us. It is a hard thing to say but I guess they were too strong for us on the day."

After a bold gamble to take Surrey Station at the coin toss on Saturday, overwhelming underdogs Oxford looked to have set up an unlikely victory when they still held the lead at Hammersmith Bridge.

As the oars came close to clashing, Cambridge finally eased ahead around Chiswick steps and, as Barnes Bridge came in view they took a lead of over a length.

Oxford's vastly inexperienced and lighter crew refused to buckle though and pushed back but the length's lead remained intact at the finish line, for Cambridge to steal the spoils in a time of 17m 49s.

Brodie said: "Coming through the five and six mile point, I really thought we had it. It looked as though we were again going to prove the bokkies wrong.

"We pushed them all the way on their bend and came out with a slight advantage, we then hoped to make our advantage count on our bend but it never really happened.

"We expected them to start well and break down, but that did not happen."

After 46 hours of rowing practice a week since September, defeat was hard to take for Brodie and co but he insists there were positives to take from it.

He said: "If you look at the individuals on the team I think you have to give us a lot of credit. Several of our guys came from the Isis crew last year with me.

"Cambridge had a lot of returning blues but there was not a lot in it in the end. At least no-one is coming up to us saying we were rubbish, because we weren't.

"We did ourselves proud, I know we lost but we can hold our heads high."

Oxford coach Sean Bowden paid tribute to his crew after his defeat.

He said: "We had a good race and made all the right moves to Hammersmith, but we couldn't quite shake them off and didn't quite have enough lead to defend,"