Currumbin keen to turn silvers into gold

Surf Life Saving Australia, April 17, 2015: LYLE Clark and his Currumbin Barbarians are keen to rid themselves of the bridesmaids tag and see the 2105 Australian surfboat championships at Tugun as being their chance to shine.

Four times they have won the silver medals at the Aussies and they want to turn silver into gold.

The Barbarians will be joined in today’s final 12 by fellow Currumbin crew, the Huskals, swept by Matt Wildman.

The Top 12 are: Bulli, Currumbin B, Piha, Sth Curl Curl, Austinmer, Mona Vale, Lorne, Queenscliff, Palm Beach, TitahI Bay, Queenscliff, Anglesea, Palm Beach NSW, Corrimal, Bilgola, Currumbin A.

“A National win is definitely well overdue after collecting silver in 2003 (Michael Brown sweep), 2006, 2007 and 2011,” said Clark.

“After making the semis at the Aussies last season we called it a day but got together again this season and trained on a lesser pressure programme and we have been performing pretty good.”

The Barbarians have good form on the board winning the Ocean Thunder title and also gold medals at the Queensland titles at Alexandra Headland.

“Matt Hickey has been sweeping the Barbarians on the Brisbane River for me and crew members-Glen Williams (stroke), Mac Hamilton, Nick Winkler and Randall Martin- have been doing a lot of private personal training, said Clark.”

Clark, Williams and Martin have been with the Barbarians for a decade while Hamilton has six years and Winkler two seasons.

Sweep Bruce Zillman’s Tugun Hunters are open women’s defending Australian champions and they showed plenty of winning form throughout the knockout races en route to the final.

The girls, who said in unison they were all 28, are in red-hot form. They represented Australia against New Zealand in the Battle of the Ditch for the last two seasons and both times came away with 3-0 series wins.

The crew comprises twins Ann (stroke) and Gen Bassingthwaighte, Sascha Lahey and Lisa Webber. Lisa and Sascha are both proud ‘firemen’ and the twins are cardiac scientists.

Zillman, a builder, said the crew was thankful to Michelle Gaffney who replaced Sascha who had work commitments during the week.

“We had a few interruptions during the season and some weeks were unable to train in the boat so we had to vary our training programme each week.”

Zillman said he was only worried about making the final but was well aware any crew to make the big race on Sunday was capable of winning,

For the past six weeks they have been concentrating on more structured training with Clark saying they were training smarter not harder.

Currumbin also has Matt Wildman sweeping the Huscals in the open men’s division who are quietly ‘doing their best’ hope to make the final.

Clark could not name their biggest danger saying he were only worried about their own performance.

Avoca, swept by Matt Mitchell, have had plenty of wins during the season but Mitchell knows there is only the one win that really counts.

Avoca were second to host club Collaroy at the NSW Young Guns championships but then put a string of wins together,

They won the ASRL titles at Shellharbour, the Battle of the Boats at Pacific Palms, the open and U19 divisions at the Central Coast branch titles and the Streets Boats six-race series contested by crews from Newcastle and Central Coast branches.

Despite their success Mitchell said he had plenty of respect for top crews from Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

Avoca has already collected 2015 gold being the boat crew when Avoca won the lifesaver relay championship.

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Issued on behalf of Surf Life Saving Australia by

Ian Hanson| Media Manager Triathlon Australia Managing Director
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