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It was perhaps the story of the 2024 Country Championships – a club leaping from comfortably outside the top 10 to fourth place with a points increase of more than 3x its previous tally – and Broulee Surfers SLSC is back this year to rattle more cages in Warilla. 

The Far South Coast club has been building to a performance of this kind for around five years, on the back of the efforts of some particularly talented and dedicated volunteers, and there’s confidence it’s not merely a one-off. 

“We’re very lucky here to have had two people in Darren Drewsen and Daniel Beby really build up the Surf Sports side of the club, and last year was probably our first one of having a really good go of it,” Team Manager, Darren McPartland said. 

“We’ve always had that strength in patrolling and in our community work, our Nippers has always been very strong, so building on the surf sports side has really added another dimension to the club.” 

Indeed, a ground swell of growth in population has helped numbers, but there’s far more to success than feet on the ground. 

“I think we had a couple of juniors begin to do well at various competitions a few years ago and that really kicks you into gear, builds that demand and everything moves forward from there,” Darren continued. 

“It sort of highlighted to everyone else how good things can be, it gave our younger kids role models, and it’s all just built from that. 

“Certainly, the area is growing so the demand is there, but that also means that the need for a more professional approach becomes apparent. 

“Darren (Drewsen) and Daniel (Beby) are the key ones, where we maybe don’t have the historical experience of some clubs in terms of coaching, but we have passionate people and a very progressive club and we’re getting better in all facets.” 

While 2024 was the first real showcase of the possibilities for the club, there’s no sign of a desire to overcomplicate the formula in 2025. Broulee intends to just encourage their competitors to do what they do best, and the rewards will manifest themselves from that. 

“For the bigger clubs it’s (winning) really important to them, whereas to us at the athlete level we just want to see as many as we can do better,” Darren said.  

“The bonus is the club doing better, but we want the individual to do well and that makes the club stronger.  

“We know that at this stage we’re competitive at a different level, we celebrate involvement and success, no matter where we come. 

“That said, who knows where we’ll be in five years. We’re really building in the water, we have great strength on the beach, last year at Warilla was really our first big year but we know we’ll have a good team wherever we go now.”  

Monday 20 January 2025