Juniors bring home the spoils
I have been waiting for Daniel Emslie to hit his straps for a while.
Somehow his obvious and huge talent has just not delivered the contest results and he came home from the 2022 World Championships just a little depressed with his result.
Well, he sure saved it up for the red rage of battle and has come home from last weekend’s Sea Harvest SA junior surfing championships in J-Bay with a runaway victory in the premier highly contested U18 division.
Taking the lead from their spectacular captain, the rest of the Buffalo City team rallied behind Daniel to trounce a shocked Western Province into second place.
This is our home province’s second junior national team title in 26 years.
Team coach Greg Emslie is thrilled with the Buffalo City Junior surfers results.
There were hits and misses as always but some of those who stepped up to the plate included Malachi Wolmarans who upped his game to make it to the quarterfinals.
Oliver Pascoe surfed above himself, where he sometimes fell on his last turn, he held his concentration to complete his final moves and deliver his best at this contest.
Perhaps two standouts for the team were Joel Fowles and David Emslie who took the one/two in their semifinal to knock out some critical opponents. They then followed up in the final with Joel first again and David taking fourth. Coach Greg comments that both these lads are exceptionally fit.
It is hard to describe just how well Adriel Wolmarans and Aimee du Preez surfed in the premier U18 ladies division. Looking back on the scores through the contest, they handsomely dominated their game. Their one (Adriel) and two (Aimee) in the final was another large nail in the coffin of Western Province’s title defence chances.
Defending champions Province, it seems, might have over-estimated themselves and underestimated little old Buffalo City who had only ever won once before in the history of this event.
As it turns out, our home team had a bit of a shocker on day one dropping more surfers to the losers round than expected, but some gentle reading of the riot act from coach Greg put the team back on track.
Assistant coach David Malherbe is no pushover either and if you fail to give your best shot in a heat he might be inclined to let you know about it.
Business maths and stats genius David ran the team spreadsheet and was able at any time to tell the team where they stood.
Young Josh Malherbe has a tough task master but he is up to the challenge.
Josh’s third position in his finals is a stepping stone and not an indication of his ceiling.
Matt O’Brien was unlucky not to find a second wave to advance in the contest and Zia Hendricks may have suffered some underscoring from the judges.
Other top performers included Camilla Heuer second U12 and Gemma Hanafey third U16.
Lead pastor Cjay Jansen heads up Wave Point Church in J-Bay attracting a healthy component of Christian surfers to his services. Of course, it helps that some of his services are on the sand beach at Lower Point in J-Bay, venue for this last junior SA Championships.
I had the pleasure after the Carona J-Bay WSL of introducing Daniel Emslie and Tom Lindhorst to Cjay and he spoke a welcome word of blessing over the lads and prayed for them to do well.
It came as a joyful surprise when Daniel bumped into Cjay at the SA Championships many months later and then even more so when the pastor came to watch the finals.
As Daniel paddled out for his final, the premier and last heat of the event, one of the contest commentators for the event, Tasha Mentastie, told him the WP/BC result was down to the final result.
If Dan wins, Buffalo City wins. If Joshua Myburgh or Connor Slijpen both from WP win the final, then WP take home the team trophy. No pressure.
Daniel Emslie has a big match temperament. From quarterfinals, through semifinals and into the final he hammered out his authority over his competitors, consistently surfing at the top of his game despite excellent opposition and the added pressure of team captainship. Daniel has also just recently returned from U18 victory at the Rip Curl grom search Scottburgh.
Be it by accident, hopeful bravado or hopefully not arrogance, defending champions WP had already engraved the SA team trophy 2022 as Western Province winners! Haha. Buffalo City are in two minds as to whether to polish this out and correct or engrave a line through and put the correct result below.
Not so much David versus Goliath as much as Daniel versus Western Province.
Pastor Cjay was pleased to see prayers come true and congratulated Daniel when he got out of the water.