Kambalda fire up after early setback to be crowned overall junior champions

Kambalda coach Godfrey Patten has praised the strong character of his young competitors who were crowned overall champion brigade at last weekend’s State junior volunteer fire brigade titles in Mandurah. Despite carrying winning form into the program at Bortolo Park, a technical disqualification through the initial rounds threatened to derail their chances. But Kambalda responded with a series of impressive runs across the remainder of the 17 events — heading the outright aggregates with 217 points from Esperance (116) and Kambalda’s second team (84). Patten said it was a courageous effort from the 37-member Kambalda team, who also went one better after being the runners-up in 2023. “These State championships are never handed to you on a plate — you have to earn it,” Patten said. “But we’ve been very strong performers over the past five years and these kids have worked hard to get to this level. “We came away with an outright win 2021 and went into 2022 with high hopes of repeating, but were second to a very good Harvey brigade. “In 2023, we were all fired-up and a Victorian team (Melton) snatched it (outright victory) out of our fingers after we’d taken it right up to them. “Through that, everyone worked hard with some fire in the belly that last weekend produced a pretty resounding win. “I’m very proud of these kids — especially after we had some setbacks on day one with an administration error, lost all of our points and had to start from scratch.” The revival, however, was instantaneous. “We (Patten and co-coach Charlee Smith) rallied the kids together and in the very next event, the juniors broke a State record, as did the sub-juniors so they were fired up,” he said. “Charlee is my partner and we trained these kids three times week, from September to November. “We sacrificed that (time) to hopefully give them the best chance of winning and our brigade captain, Darren McCarthy, has been a very strong supporter.” Last weekend’s triumph was a far cry from six years ago, when Patten said Kambalda had just eight junior runners. Last weekend’s program featured 13 brigades. Results: Junior champion fireman: Toby Hilder (Southern Cross); Adam Magan (North Kalgoorlie); William Cullen (Coolgardie). Sub-junior champion fireman: Blake Beedham (Kambalda); Van Habberly (Esperance) and Rhett Sowden (North Kalgoorlie) tied for second. Junior zone challenge: Goldfields; South-West. Sub-junior challenge: Northern zone; Goldfields.