TUGUN’S BIG PLAN
REVIVAL OF SURF GIANT:
THERE’S something brewing in the water at Tugun surf club – new head coach Kelly Margetts can just feel it.
Once a surf lifesaving powerhouse, winning five straight Australian taplin titles at the turn of the millennium, Tugun admits it has failed to reach those same heights in recent years.
But a coaching reshuffle could change that.
At the end of 2019, after 10 years at the helm of Tugun, former professional ironman and Australian champion Hugh Dougherty stepped down to move his young family to Yamba in northern NSW where he grew up.
That’s when Tugun director of surf sports Rhyam Pankhurst asked Margetts if he’d like to be involved in nurturing the club’s next generation.
While names like Olympians Ky Hurst and Ken Wallace have written the club’s rich history in the past, Tugun is now firmly focused on the future and supplementing its senior water squad with Nippers and athletes developed in-house.
“I sat down with Rhyam and Murray (Nippers coach Murray Seaton) and said I’m only interested if we believe in heading in the same direction and Tugun really lives up to that,” Margetts said.
“I love what they stand for and their commitment to breeding their own and creating a team and program people want to be involved with for the right reasons.”
An active member of the Gold Coast surf lifesaving community, Margetts has coached at both Currumbin and Palm Beach surf clubs before deciding to revisit his roots at Tugun.
“I actually did Nippers at Tugun and the first day I turned up to coaching on a Saturday morning, one of the old guys at the club, I think he’s 84, comes up to me and says, ‘welcome back, Kelly’ and so he somehow remember me from 30-odd years ago,” he said.
Since taking the reins, Margetts has worked closely with Seaton and club juniors have now started training with the senior squad.
Having won the handicap award at the state titles last season and coming second in the points score at the Point Danger branch titles, Margetts
believes Tugun is on its way to returning to the heights of surf sport.
“We’re building something special,” he said.
“We’re not going to click our fingers; it’s going to be a five-year plan at best and Murray has already put four years into our Nippers.
“Since they’ve been training together, you can see the gap between the kids and the seniors slowly closing.
“In a few years, we want to have athletes in every age group and have a full squad.
“If everything is based on medals and tangible success, I don’t think that’s entirely the right approach so we’ll first work on creating an energy.”