There was plenty to celebrate for the Far North Coast representative Surf Life Saving team as they returned from last weekend’s Interbranch Championships with the trophy for “Most Successful” Country Branch in their possession as well as a host of strong performances.


The team travelled to Black Head Beach on the state’s Lower North Coast full of optimism and during the two-day-competition they managed to tally 834 points (5th place overall) which was more than 150 points clear of their nearest Branch rival.



In the Open Board Race Luke Chaffer showed his strength and experience, taking out gold while the Male and Female Open Taplin Relay teams performed strongly. Thirds were recorded in the Open Male Iron Team and the Youth Female Iron Team race.



Far North Coast competitor Anthea Warne, still on a high after coming second in the Board Rescue Relay with her teammates, agreed the Championships were awesome for high performance development.



“Personally Interbranch is my favourite competition of the year. This is my seventh championships and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”



The Far North Coast Lifesavers certainly don’t lack team spirit, nor do their counterparts from the North Coast who did enough to finish 9th overall.



“It’s been a lot of fun racing this weekend and hanging out and being part of that team environment,” said Coffs Harbour’s Nick Bulloch who has been a part of the representative scene for the last four summers.



On the sand in the U13 Beach Sprint, Noah Waldock (Ballina) crossed the line in third.



NSW Director of Surf Sport, Don van Keimpema, thanked the Black Head SLSC volunteers and work party for hosting a great weekend of racing and congratulated all the athletes, team managers, coaches and officials for their efforts.



“We’re hoping to build this event to be one of the premier events in the state. The team environment we had this weekend was absolutely fantastic,” he said.



With the Interbranch Championships now behind them surf sport athletes from across Northern NSW can now focus on a solid period of training and racing ahead of the NSW Country Championships to be hosted by Cudgen Headland at Kingscliff Beach in early February and the NSW Championships at Swansea Belmont in March.



Before these competitions however a number of local athletes including Chaffer and Warne will suit up for Country NSW Team for the Trans-Tasman and NSW Interstate Championships in what is shaping up to be a super summer of surf sport competition.



Overall Pointscore




  • Sydney Northern Beaches 1198

  • Sydney 1185

  • Hunter 1055

  • Central Coast 1000

  • Far North Coast 834

  • Illawarra 722

  • South Coast 675

  • Mid North Coast 545

  • North Coast 467

  • Far South Coast 311

  • Lower North Coast 267



Wednesday 12 December 2018