O'Connor can't quite break past local Stairmand

He couldn't quite nail the big one but Mount Maunganui surfer Tim O'Connor was delighted with his second-place finish at the Rip Curl Pro in Raglan at the weekend.
Raglan local Billy Stairmand proved unstoppable on his home break, especially when the event was moved to the 1m waves at Ruapuke Beach.
It was Stairmand's third win at the event, although both previous successes have been at his more favoured break of Manu Bay.
O'Connor surfed a brilliant event and finished the final with a 14.75 point heat total yet still required a combination of scores to catch Stairmand.
"I am stoked with my result - I made a final earlier in the Series but it is good to make finals in the big events" said O'Connor. O'Connor jumped to No2 on the SOL Surf Series behind Jay Quinn (Gisborne) who was absent from the event this weekend.
Another local surfer in Leon Santorik placed third in the final, his best result on the SOL Surf Series this year scoring 14.50 in the final while fourth place went to Larry Fisher (Rag) who made his first final in some years after a great weekend of results.
Earlier in the day O'Connor and Santorik defeated Maz Quinn (Gisborne) and Richard Christie (Mahia) in the first semifinal while Stairmand and Fisher defeated Blair Stewart (Gisborne) and Keone Campbell (Taranaki) in the second semifinal.
But it was Stairmand who won a place in the Rip Curl Padang Cup in Bali in July, after surfing a near-perfect final scoring 18.25 points out of a possible 20.
It was the highest heat score of the entire event. His top two waves were 9.5 and 8.75 point rides, his highest including two backhand re-entries and a trademark fins free backhand close out manoeuvre that brought the sun drenched crowd alive.
"I just went out and got that first wave and it flowed from there. I was relaxed and not thinking of the heats as a comp, just having fun with the boys kinda thing," said Stairmand.
Stairmand is one of New Zealand's big hopes in the upcoming Association of Surfing Professionals event at Gisborne in 10 days time. Having won an international event in Portugal of the same size in 2010, Stairmand will hope that he can find another good performance when the world's best surfers come to New Zealand. Grace Spiers (Whangamata) claimed her second victory at a national level winning the Open Women's Division of the Rip Curl Pro presented by Nature Valley. Spiers posted an 11.5 point heat total for a hard fought win over her opponents. The win elevates Spiers to second in the SOL Surf Series going into the last event of the year, one place behind fellow Whangamata surfer Ella Williams. Auckland's Rosa Thompson was second.