There are few things in sport that can equal the emotional highs of a local derby. It's one thing to have an unknown enemy who resides somewhere on the other side of the continent, but when the combatants reside just on the other side of the headland and often share the same waters...well, then we've got us some competition.

Freud called it the narcissism of small differences but there's no need for high falootin' to understand what's going on: When two teams share the same border, or in this case the same waves, the threat is local and ongoing, and so the friction builds.

This explains some of the animosity between local Gold Coast boardrider clubs, D'Bah and Snapper Rocks, and to a lesser extent, Kirra. When they meet up, as they will in this weekend's final of the Jim Beam National Surftag, passions will be running hot.

D'Bah Boardriders was formed in 2008 when a group of like-minded fellas broke away from Snapper Rocks and Kirra. “Those clubs had become too big,” says current D'Bah Boardriders President, Ray Helton. “They'd introduced so many divisions: micro-groms, groms, juniors, opens, seniors, masters, grand masters. The clubs became family oriented, which is great, but for these guys that meant the contests became boring. Many of them sat around all day to surf just once.”

And so they split over the headland and formed their own club – D'Bah Boardriders. “The guys were all a similar age,” says Ray. “All about 18 – 30-years old, so they had just one division.”

It was a new club, and it had a new character too. “It was a social club,” Ray gleefully admits. “You know, it's hard to have beers at a club contest when there's 10-year olds around. It just wasn't on.” But it was on at D'Bah? “Yeah, they like to have some fun.”

And if it stayed like that all would have remained harmonious in the Gold Coast club community. However, D'Bah began rocking the boat. “If you start having fun you attract other surfers,” says Ray of D'Bah's simple homespun philosophy. “And well, for us, some of those surfers were very good surfers.” The Dorrington brothers surfed for D'Bah, Nick Vasicek made the move, Jack Freestone saw what was happening and signed up. The influx of hot surfers upset the delicate hometown balance.

It's one thing to have a breakaway club taking talented surfers, it's another to see them having more fun, but what stings worse than all that is when they are having fun and doing well. D'Bah won the Kirra Teams Challenge in 2012 and 2013, they won the Jim Beam Surftag QLD qualifier in 2012 and also came third in the national final that year.

This year they've again qualified for the final, and it's to be held at their own beach – Duranbah. There are 32 other teams beside local foes Snapper Rocks and Kirra, but make no bones about it this is one local derby D'Bah Boardriders want to win.

Read more about the Jim Beam National Surftag Final.