Good luck keeping up with the Jones' mob

For more than 40 years, The Jones Beach Boardriders Club (JBB) has shown how a friendly, small-town community can produce fiercely competitive, world-class talent.

This summer, the small but mighty club continues to dominate national competition as members of all ages brought medals back to Kiama Downs.

“We’re the underdogs and we can take it to these big clubs, these Queensland clubs, and win,” club president Hayden Bombaci says. “But you can also have that transparency, that awareness and that softness between each other to build those connections, to make it a collaborative and inclusive sport.”

Hayden grew up in Kiama Downs and joined the group at 10 years old, eager to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, Reece, who achieved success as a professional surfer. Despite his club leadership role and 26 years of experience, he says the ocean remains the ultimate teacher.

“It's a really good representation of how to kind of navigate life, you know. You can go out there and sometimes you're not prepared or whatever it is… the waves will whack you and send you back to shore huffing, wet, cold, disappointed as life does sometimes, when you're not prepared,” he says. 

“But the good thing is you go back. You say ‘okay, what did I get wrong? Where can I get better?’ You train, you analyse, you learn, you teach.”

JBB welcomes 150-200 members each year, offering an intergenerational social web that connects inspiring masters of the sport such as Brett Connellan, Matt Thompson, Joel Trist and Bruce Flint with junior talent performing on the national stage such as Alice Hodgson, Lennox Lindsay, Ruby Neill and Lani Cairncross.

“There are guys and girls that I’m mates with today that there is not a chance I’d be mates with outside of boardriders. We’re just different generations and different jobs, but surfing is the one thing that brings us together,” Hayden says.

“The older guys and girls feel important because they’re giving back and passing things on. The young ones get the importance of being seen, which is a really cool thing and it breaks down those barriers where a kid might be intimidated to talk to an adult. I always like to see that transition into real life if they're having dramas at school or whatever it is. It's just another safe face walking around town.”

Hayden says that the physical rigour and mental challenge of surfing pushes people to be better versions of themselves. As club members develop technical skills and physical capabilities, they’re also building resilience, mindfulness and a sense of self-confidence.

“It’s a crazy sport – I love it. It’s a great equaliser of humans, and especially young people with all the emotions and hormones they experience. You can be big, skinny, tall – it doesn’t matter what you are. If you don’t prepare, train and respect the environment you’re going into, it’ll humble you very quickly,” he says.

“It teaches you to be self-aware, to keep your head cool and calm, to be safe out there because there’s no phones. Sometimes there’s not that many people around.

“We’re all going to have our bad days in the surf, but the important thing is you keep your head calm and have another crack at it the next day.”

The club holds nine competitive events a year, running from February to November, including the South Coast Cup, which welcomes clubs from Bondi to the southern NSW border in May 2026. Members have the developmental support to compete for national and international titles, such as Lennix Smith, who earned equal third at WSL World Junior Championships in the Philippines in January.

“We try to push our juniors to get out there and we do development with them, bringing in some coaches to achieve more competitive goals. But then another goal we focus on is just trying to keep that fun, trying to attract more people to get into it and grow that community vibe further,” Hayden says. 

“One sort of feeds the other, really. If you've got a good community, people want to be involved and then naturally, through that, people are going to get better at surfing.”

Hayden is grateful to everyone who supports JBB. He says managing the club is “certainly not a one-man-job” and relies on a committee of volunteers and funding from families and businesses.

“All our money is homegrown. It’s the mums and the dads. I’ve even got a mate who doesn't surf, but he sponsors just because he loves seeing the groms out there and sees it as a good thing to be associated with,” Hayden says.

“It takes many, many people to get every event going, and everyone’s so generous and beautiful with their time. Without them, there’s just not a chance this would run year in and year out.”

Membership for the Jones Beach Boardriders typically runs through the peak surfing months, with events hosted at Jones Beach in partnership with the local surf life saving club.

Follow the club on Facebook.