Any way you look at it, Sunday's final was the closest Newcastle has come to a local men's Surfest winner.
Adopted Novocastrian Julian Wilson tied with local favourite Ryan Callinan 14.27 in a memorable Surfest Newcastle Pro decider featuring the top two seeds at Merewether.
The Coolum product, though, took the 5000-point qualifying series event with the highest individual wave score of the final - an 8.5 - against Callinan's 7.77.
Callinan, the world No.14, needed a 7.78 when he put together two vertical snaps and third turn to finish, with seven and a half minutes left in the 35-minute final. It put him level and he then needed a 6.51 when the score dropped with 4:40 to go.
Callinan searched desperately for the right wave but it didn't come in a slow final where only one was surfed in the first 16 minutes.
World No.11 Wilson, 31, has lived in Merewether with his Novocastrian wife, Ashley, for the past two years but still considers himself a Queenslander.
Callinan, born and bred in Merewether, has been the best hope in recent years of a first local men's winner at Surfest, which was first held in 1985. He conceded it hurt to just miss out on the crown.
"It's as close as it can get," Callinan said. "It is what it is, there's nothing I can do about it, but they definitely hyped it up in the commentary and I thought I had it for sure, but it's all good," he said of the 7.77.
As for that elusive local win, Callinan said: "It's a lot of pressure. I don't know. I feel like I'm getting closer."
Asked if good friend Wilson could be considered a local: "No. No he's not," Callinan laughed.
The final was a repeat of the 2018 France Pro, when Callinan made the decider of the championship tour event as an injury replacement and lost to Wilson. He said the Surfest rematch "was always going to be close".
"I think Jules brings out the best in me and it was a bit of a battle," he said. "I'm getting there. I'll get him next time.
"It's a pretty good start to the year. Obviously it would have been great to take it out, but just to make a few heats and make the final, it was pretty special. It's nice to be home with all the support."
Wilson was excited to take the win in his first competition of the year.
"My wife is a local girl and she's got a beautiful family who are obviously deeply entrenched in Newcastle and they've adopted me and welcomed me into Newcastle and I've met some incredible friends and the community is amazing here," Wilson said.
"I know it's not a true local win, but it's nice to do it for the friends and family I have around me down here. And Ryan having the best ever performance by a local makes it pretty special."
He was disappointed both surfers didn't have more chances in the decider.
"It felt like the ocean didn't really wake up for the final, but I think I was on the best wave and Ryan was on the second best, and we ended up tied," he said. "For the No.1 and No.2 seed to come together in the final, it doesn't happen very often, so that's great."
"At this point of the event, it's who gets the best wave and we each had a really good wave and we ended up tied. It would have been great to have more opportunities, but it was still an exciting final.
"Ryan was in great form all week and I think he might have peaked in the semis, he had an outstanding semi-final, and was in amazing form and it would have been great to have more opportunities in the final.
"I felt pretty tuned in.
"I showed up this week which was really nice. I think I struggled to find that last year, and this year I've put in a lot of hard work and it's nice to get that feedback that the hard work is paying off early on in the year."
Earlier, Callinan produced one of the heats of the contest to hold off high-flying Brazilian Ian Gouveia in the semi-finals 18.3 to 17.1
Callinan earned a 9.5 with a backhand assault before an 8.8 from a huge turn and front-side rotation to finish.
Gouveia took to the air for back-to-back scores of 8.6 and 8.5 to finish with a total that would have won most heats in the event.
That followed a narrow win for Callinan over 2014 champion Matt Banting in the quarter-finals, 14.87 to 14.24. The Port Macquarie regular-footer led before Callinan earned a pair of sevens for backhand hits midway through the heat.
Callinan easily accounted for American Nat Young 14.8 to 6.94 in the round of 16 to start his finals day.
Wilson dominated countryman Mitch Crews 13.7 to 5.53 to open Sunday's competition.
He then survived a blow-for-blow nail-biter with Frenchman Joan Duru 16.8 to 16.07 in the quarters before beating Peru's Alonso Correa 14.83 to 12.7.
