Woods takes down Parkinson to lead Burleigh to maiden state Boardriders Battle title

BURLEIGH have underlined their position as Queensland’s top surfing club after claiming their first Australian Boardriders Battle state title at The Spit.

Thomas Woods leads Burleigh to a win in the Queensland final of the Australian Boardriders Battle at The Spit.

BURLEIGH have underlined their position as Queensland’s top surfing club after claiming their first Australian Boardriders Battle state title at The Spit.

The victory gives the club a championship treble after Thomas Woods won the state open title earlier this year and Liam O’Brien won the under-18 division.

Woods, who like O’Brien won a spot in next year’s Quiksilver Pro trials courtesy of his individual title win, spearheaded Burleigh’s weekend victory, taking out all five of his skins heats in clean 0.5-1m waves to give his team what turned out to be an unassailable lead in the competition.

Woods, Burleigh’s nominated “power surfer’’ took out former world champion Joel Parkinson in the skins format, as well as notching the highest single-wave score of the event to give Burleigh an early lead.

Burleigh were challenged by defending state champions Point Lookout and Parkinson’s Snapper Rocks in the teams event, but the team of Woods, O’Brien, Maddy Job, Lucy Callister, Nick Callister and captain-coach Kyle Robinson hung tight to hand the club the title and a place in the Australian Boardriders Battle national finals in Newcastle in February.

The win was Burleigh’s first state teams title win and realised the dream of former president and club legend Mick Murphy, who died before he was able to see his club achieve the goal.

Unable to crack the top five clubs in the state just a few years ago, Burleigh is starting to see the rewards of a plan put in place about eight years ago to develop their junior talent.

“We’re the best boardriders club in Queensland, with no world tour surfers on our team either.

“We have Thomas Woods on the Qualifying Series, but not “Parko’’ and those ones,’’ Burleigh surfing identity Terry “Tappa’’ Teece said of Snapper Rocks representative Parkinson, who turned out for his club on Saturday, as fellow world tour surfers Bede Durbidge (Point Lookout), Mick Fanning (Kirra) and Stephanie Gilmore (Snapper) have in the past.

“Burleigh Boardriders through our former president (Murphy), basically had a 10-year plan which we started about seven or eight years ago and it’s all about junior development and bringing on our young kids.

“We’ve done that and we’ve got really good results and we’ve gone from the also-rans to the best club in Queensland.’’

The top four teams – Burleigh, Point Lookout, Snapper Rocks and Duranbah – shared $5000 in prizemoney and secured a spot in the Australian Boardriders national final against another 16 teams from around the country.