Boardriders Battle: North Shelly and Avoca square up in final
Virtually unknown outside the close-knit surfing fraternity, this rag-tag bunch of waxheads are going up against some of the biggest names in the sport.
Virtually unknown outside the close-knit surfing fraternity, this rag-tag bunch of waxheads are going up against some of the biggest names in the sport.
After jagging a wildcard entry to this weekend’s final of the nudie Australian Boardriders Battle at Newcastle, this champion team has firm belief it can topple teams stacked with champions.
In a sport where rivalries need no fanning, this weekend is shaping up as an epic clash of the Coast between the journeymen of North Shelly and the hired guns of Avoca Beach.
With Macy Callaghan being North Shelly Boardriders Club’s only true marquee professional, it will be up to a chippie, a builder and a couple of high school students to get them over the line.
“I have no doubt we can beat (Avoca) and win the event,” a confident Callaghan told the Express Advocate from camp at Lennox Head.
“I think our team is just as strong.”
Callaghan broke onto the Women’s Championship Tour this year and said the team-based event was dependent on how strong each competitor was across the board.
And she said North Shelly’s line up had the depth to match it with anyone including Avoca Boardriders which boasts none other than Adrian Buchan, Wade Carmichael, Matt Wilkinson and Callaghan’s old sparring partner Kirra-Belle Olsson.
“I haven’t been down the Coast for a while but I talk to them and see what they’re doing, they’re all ripping,” she said.
“Molly (Picklum) is doing amazing things at the moment and we have Russ Molony, he never falls off.”
Each club will field one Junior (male or female), three male and one female Open competitors and one Over 35 (male or female) with one reserve in each division.
North Shelly Boardriders president Cameron Sharpe said they had beaten Avoca’s “B-team” in the Kings of the Coast for the past seven years and big names meant nothing.
“We will smash them,” he said.
Sharpe said the event’s format could see youngsters like Joel Vaughan, 16, in the water against the likes of Joel Parkinson or Stephanie Gilmore.
“That’s what’s good about it,” he said.
With five surfers all taking part in the one 50-minute heat, Sharpe said timing was critical.
He said some of the professionals “sit out there thinking they’ll get a 10-point wave” and use up a big chunk of their team’s heat.
Wilkinson, who grew up at Copacabana and is based at Byron Bay, is looking forward to flying down for the weekend to compete alongside his mates, including Buchan, who is six years his senior.
“When I was a kid, he was like God in my eyes,” Wilkinson said of Buchan.
“My whole life I’ve looked up to him and tried to follow in his footsteps.”
Wilkinson is particularly keen to link up again with Olsson, his niece, with both of them part of the Avoca team that won the national title two years ago.
Avoca Boardriders Club president Anthony Love said the surfers representing the club would be cheered on by a large group of travelling supporters this weekend.
“All of the young kids look up to these guys; the kids get a buzz out of seeing them,” Love said.
The nudie Australian Boardriders Battle is the biggest grassroots boardriders event in Australia, with more than 100 boardriding clubs battling it out in eight state qualifying rounds in the lead-up to the two-day national final.
There will be $82,000 prizemoney across the national final, with the winning boardriders taking home $20,000.
The event will be broadcast live online and on Fox Sports for the first time.
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