Smoked 'em all but one

Marlborough's rural firefighters have shown they are among the best in the country, coming second at the national Rural Fire Force championships this month.

It was the second time a Marlborough team has competed in the championships and the first time a team has competed at a championships outside the region, team manager Tim Vertelman said.

The team came fourth at its last attempt when the championships were held in Marlborough in 2008.

This time round it took on five other crews from around New Zealand who qualified for the championships in Gisborne on Friday, November 18.

The four-strong team of volunteer fire fighters trained twice a week for three months before the event and it paid off with a result they could be proud of, Tim said.

"The guys did well, they put in a big effort."However, they were left with mixed feelings after not doing as well as they had hoped across the series of relay races.

The team was disappointed with the time it ran to complete the relays and felt it could have done much better.

However, it had been hampered with a series of injuries in the week before the championships which had made things hard, he said.

They also had to contend with a long day's travel to Gisborne for the event, while the date of the event had to be changed from Saturday to Friday only a week beforehand, making it hard for some of the team to sort out the time off to attend.

The team is planning to enter next year's championships which will be held in the South Island. The team members were looking forward to the event and were already aiming to top their efforts this year with a plan to start training earlier this time around.

- The Marlborough Express

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