TAEKWONDO master Ronald Bergan was confident he and his four students would do well at the Pan Pacific Masters Games.
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However, he did not anticipate just how well they would do.
The group of five returned home to the Bay with 30 medals from the Gold Coast competition.
"As a team, I had great confidence we would do well," Bergan said.
"A lot of them were thinking they wouldn't get a medal at all."
Bergan said it was a testament to rigorous training that Elizabeth Dederer, Peter Hallett, Terry Dawson and David Kilroy could snatch medals from the grasp of veteran teams who enter into the master games every two years.
This year 88 competitors entered into the games.
It was Dawson and Kilroy's first games, with the pair bringing home six and seven medals respectively.
"The weekend was a roller coaster," Kilroy said.
"You did an event, thought you did badly then got a medal."
From 10 categories he entered in to, from 11 overall, Bergan won nine medals.
The individual and team medals included two-on-two sparring, a first for the games.
Hallett won four medals, two gold and two silver, in his first games while Dederer, in her third, won three silver and one bronze.
Bergan said the team's performance at the master games was a good lead in to the Port Stephens Taekwondo Championships to be held at Tomaree High School on February 21 and 22.