Oxford University completely dominated the 2015 BNY Mellon and Newton Boat Races with a combination of ‘steel’ and ‘humility’ to win all five of the encounters with Cambridge, accumulating a total margin of 35 lengths, writes John Wiggins.

While the women’s crews were appearing on the London Tideway course for the first time, it was a familiar story for the men’s president Constantine Louloudis.

He will undoubtedly feature significantly in GB’s Olympic rowing plans for Rio in 2016, but for the past year, he has had one sporting goal: to lead his men to victory – his fourth and a hat-trick for Oxford.

Despite this being coach Sean Bowden’s 11th win in charge of the Dark Blues, it is his first hat-trick.

Dan Topolski, the most well-known of Bowden’s predecessors who died earlier this year, claimed 12 victories in his 15 years as coach.

His memory and influence was marked by each Oxford oarsman, who wore Dan’s name on their sleeve.

This was a fitting tribute to a great man of the Boat Race.

But so was the manner of the Oxford win, which started by their rowing away from Cambridge, into a headwind, on the outside of the bend in an intense two minutes.

The Oxford mantra for the 2015 race was ‘be steely’, an echo of the victorious 1965 Oxford, ‘Krew of Steel’ – reportedly then the ‘toughest Oxford crew since the war’.

This year’s crew had the boat speed to take the advantage off the start and hold a small lead after seven minutes through Hammersmith Bridge, but then turned on the pressure.

Four minutes later at Chiswick Steps, the margin was seven seconds. By Barnes Bridge this was doubled to 14 seconds and then, it was further extended to 20 seconds at the finish.

With this victory, the overall tally creeps steadily towards parity, with 79 Oxford wins to Cambridge’s 81.

Sandwiched between the two Blue boat races was the men’s reserve race where the Dark Blues’ Isis crew beat Goldie by three lengths much to the delight of coach, Andy Nelder.

And the fifth Oxford victory?

This came on the Friday as two boats of Old Blues with average age of over 42 raced on the outgoing tide from Furnival Steps to Putney.

Oxford avenged last year’s defeat with a three-length win to set the tone for what was to follow.