Noel Donaldson
Noel Donaldson (born 16 December 1955) is an Australian former rowing coxswain and has since 1990 been a prominent and successful world-class rowing coach of Victorian state, Australian national and later, New Zealand national crews. Rowing career Donaldson's senior rowing was from the Mercantile Rowing Club. In 1979 he was selected to cox the Victorian men's eight who contested and won the King's Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships. Donaldson made his sole Australian representative appearance as coxswain of the 1979 Australian men's eight who contested the 1979 World Rowing Championships in Bled. That crew finished in fourth place. Coaching career Donaldson started coaching at Melbourne's Carey Baptist Grammar School where James Tomkins stroked the first VIII in both his senior years, 1982 and 1983. Donaldson was instrumental in Tomkins early development and brought him to Mercantile Rowing Club. Donaldson successful coaching career was then forged on the consistent performances he extracted from the Tomkins and the rest of the Oarsome Foursome, Australia's prominent world class crew of the 1990s and early 2000s. Donaldson was consistently the top Victorian men's coach of the 1990s, coaching ten Victorian men's King's Cup eights in that decade to eight