| The Dogman // Interview 21 August 2009 By: Andrew Cassidy Location: Port Macquarie Currently ranked number five in Australia and number one in New South Wales, Roger Saunders remains unassuming in his competitive accomplishments - keeping true to his down to earth, no frills persona. Australian Paddle Surfer recently caught up with Roger over a beer at the Port Macquarie Caravan Park.  Where'd you grow up? I grew up in a place called Temora out near Wagga Wagga. We had a little, tiny dam on our property and that was the only water I saw for a long, long time. How far from the coast is that? Easily, probably about 400kms or so. It was a sheep and wheat station. This one's an easy one, what's your nickname? The Dogman! What do you do for a living? Well I'm a landscaper but I don't really do much of that, I just do a lot of labouring work on construction sites and I've actually started up a stand up paddle school. I'm just trying to keep that dream alive and keep off the shovel and have a paddle in my hand instead. Where's your SUP school based? We work out of Grafton and the Yamba area, up on the North Coast of NSW. It's a bit of fun. It's called North Coast Surf Styles. What's your favourite board? I don't know. It's a cross between the Naish Glide - just for the alrounder-ness of it because I can go paddling a couple of headlands down on it to check the surf and for a shorty, I just can't go past the 9'3" Naish but I haven't really used anything to compare it against. Where's your favourite place to SUP? I've got a soft spot for a place we call "The Bay" at home and I shouldn't go into too much detail about it (laughs) but it sort of just starts to break when it gets over 8-10 foot. It really comes into its own when it gets bigger than that. You had a good time at the Mambo comp last year hey? Yeah, I just did my usual thing and destroyed all my gear. Luckily all these generous people in the industry lent me their boards to slowly destroy them too. I wrote a board off before the comp and then the last surf of the comp, just before we had the presso, I wrote my paddle off - I sent JB's rear fin straight through my paddle blade. JB doesn't really know this 'cause I never really told him but I pulled the board towards me and I shish-kebabed the fin right through the blade. I went in and the funniest thing is like Renee, my partner, goes, "The surf's unreal, what are you doing coming in?" and I went, "Oh man, look at this" and she's gone, "Oh, you're hopeless", because I just destroy shit. That's all I do. What's your favourite manoeuvre? Ooooh, favourite manoeuvre? It's probably the barrel, mate. Without a doubt. Backhand barrels, that's my fave. What's your favourite type of food? It'd have to be the pie, ya know? Nice and easy. I'm world renowned for that. But more than anything I'm a bit of a noodle buff because I actually worked in a Chinese restaurant for a while when I left school. That's probably where it all went wrong because I actually learnt how to cook food which tasted good - whereas before I was the skinniest little rack that you'd ever seen and now I'm just Jabba the Hutt, ya know (laughing)? Who's your favourite stand up paddler? Ummm, I don't know ... it'd have to be Billy Watson, mate. Like that guy is just solid in anything and everything. I've seen the photos of him up the Goldy, at that little secret spot they’ve got up there, getting barrelled and that. And it's funny, a lot of people I know at home go up to the Goldy and say, "Oh man, I seen this bloke up there mate, he's ripping". And it's always him. Everyone sees him, and I go, "Yeah I know that dude. He's good". Do you do any other water sports? Ummm, not particularly. I do a bit of kitesurfing but I don't do much surfing these days. As soon as I got that paddle in my hand, I got the bug and I don't surf anymore. I don't fish. I don't water-ski. What does the Dogman hate about the world? Ohhh, shit, where do I start (hysterical laughing)? I just hate negative crap. I try and be as positive as I can and try and enjoy things. People that dwell on crap and go whinge about this and that, just shits me to tears. We are only here for a short time, let's make it a good time. Where do you think the sport's heading? The only way is up for it, you know? It's getting to the point where a lot of people are trying it out and having a little bit of a dabble. The words is getting around that it's a lot of fun. I do a lot of work with school sport and a lot of kids first rock up and go, "What the hell's this? I'm not doing that, I could just lay on it and go faster anyway". And once they get on it they just go, "Oh hey, how good is this?". There's this whole thing of within the first five minutes they've got that massive smile on their face because they are having so much fun - and that's what it's all about. What's your most memorable SUP session? Well, it's not a good one, put it that way. It goes back to The Bay at home. Big session, all the boys are up on the headland, all raving how big it is, I took all these big boards and guns down and told the boys to come out with me, and they were all, "Nah, I haven't got this and I haven't got that, I haven't got my hair tied the right way". So I went out by myself and I caught a few good ones that were OK but then I paddled for this one that I thought was going to be great but it just held me up in the lip a little bit and I pulled back and I turned around and watched the biggest wave I've ever seen in my life just start breaking. This massive whitewash was about to mow me down and I just literally started crying to myself saying, "You stupid idiot, you've got kids". All the friggen pricks are up on the headland laughing at me - you've done it again. There was no time to paddle around it, so I paddled towards this thing and dived as deep as I could. I had a 15 foot legrope on and I was trying to drag my board underwater to get deeper and deeper. It nearly ripped my leg off and dragged me back. I got back to the surface after it had passed and luckily only wore a few smaller ones after it. I got back on my board, sat on it and waved to everyone up on the headland - I'm still alive. I paddle to the channel then another 2kms back to the beach to get to safety. I made it home alive. It was pretty funny - well I can laugh about it now anyway. A final question, what's the story behind the red Gath helmet? It was sun protection at the start. The first time I ever wore it, I had the visor down the whole time. It sucked. Just the warped-ness of it, you can't depict where everything is. I nearly killed myself a few times with it. My missus kept saying, "Your not going surfing without that thing on your head". But now it's just like a friggen safety blanket because I get smacked in the head all the time. I don't know what it is - I might have to paint it a different colour because it's just a bullseye, it's the target and I cop it. Now the visor's all smashed up the middle and I can't pull it down. I've so got to get another one - it'll have to be red. Or I might have to get a different one to surf those breaks where they don't really like me, "Oh there's another dude with a blue helmet" (laughing).  | |
