Hunter’s leading IRB club finished third overall after three days of competition held in varying conditions at Mollymook from Friday to Sunday.

Club captain Scott Bryant was thrilled with the milestone achieved for Caves Beach but also felt they could have finished even higher.

Caves Beach have proven themselves to be the state’s premier IRB club with a history-making 11 NSW titles in 14 seasons.

But until the weekend they had never finished higher than fourth on the national stage.

All of this season’s training and competition had been geared towards the NSW and Australian titles and clearly all of the hard work paid off.

“To finish top three is excellent,” Bryant said. “It has never been done before and we have achieved our aim.

“But we were perhaps a little bit disappointed because although we came away achieving our goal we were also thinking we could’ve done better.

“But there were certainly no negatives out of it. Our average age is about 22 and we were only beaten by teams whose average age is 30-35.”

Caves Beach were silver medallists in the open men’s mass rescue.

“It’s the first time we have medalled in that event, so that was pretty special,” Bryant said.

Two-time Australian champion Liam Steyn finished with the bronze medal in the open men’s tube rescue.

Bryant said the open women’s rescue team were on track for a bronze medal before they were disqualified for tripping.

North Burleigh captured the Australian crown and NSW champions Kiama Downs were second.

Caves Beach were one of 45 clubs and around 700 competitors at the meet.

The club will have a well-earned break now before getting back into training over summer and continuing the club’s “succession plan”.

Bryant is also keen to continue building the profile of IRB racing, which took a hit in regards to competition and participation numbers when rising public liability insurance premiums brought the sport to a standstill in 2001.