Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

This week's blog was written as Sideline Sid and Mrs Sid return home on the big bird over the big Tasman sea.

Five weeks on the Sunshine Coast went like a flash and Sid can now look forward to the second half of the Steamers season and the new cricket season that kicks off in a few weeks time.

Last week's SunLive piece on the Black Fins got me thinking about how far surf sport has come in the last 25 years.

It was Cory Hutchings, that showed other kiwi competitors that with hard work and a shift across the ditch to train and compete, that the Aussie's could be beaten on their home beaches.

Corey's World Ironman titles was just the start, to where the best kiwi surf sport athletes could compete on even terms with the Australian super stars.

A trifecta of world championship titles (2012, 2014, 2016) with the latest coming last weekend, have confirmed the kiwis as able push the Australians to the limit whenever they meet in competition.

Aaron Jarman, who cut his competition teeth with the Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service, was another to take the plunge to become a professional surf athlete in the early 1990's.

However, many of the Australian surf sport competitors, have a huge advantage, in terms of being able to train twelve months of the year in Northern New South Wales or Queensland. The first two weeks of September, saw the many surf clubs on the Sunny Coast having Nipper registration days.

The competition season in Queensland only takes a break during the winter days of June, July and August.

Lifeguard patrols are on duty at the Queensland tourist beaches 365 days of the year.

This grey haired sports correspondent believes there are three major reasons the kiwis can go head to head on equal terms with the Aussie's in surf sport today.

The first is in the annual migration of our elite competitors to train and race across the ditch.

The second is the employment of professional coaches in the New Zealand clubs that are serious about surf sport competition.

However, the game changer for Sideline Sid is the annual Ocean Athletes Championship staged at Mount Maunganui each summer.

The New Zealand age group titles pit the best 10,11,12 and 13 year old rising stars in competitive racing, to find the best in the country.

The vast majority of our current Black Fins and junior Black Fins have contested the Ocean Athletes carnival on Mount Main Beach.

Writing this on the Air New Zealand flight home, I did a mental list of the advantages of the Sunshine Coast verses the Western Bay of Plenty.

In the Australian corner is the winter weather in the low to mid twenties, cheap petrol and cheaper electricity, excellent bus and rail transport and a slightly lower cost of living.

In the New Zealand corner was that the Sunshine Coast isn't home.

Seeya at the Steamers games and the cricket.