Waterlions head to national Age Championships

By Marc McGowan
THE Haileybury Waterlions are set to better last year’s three-medal haul and roar into the top 20 clubs in the country at next week’s Australian Age Championships in Sydney.
The Waterlions finished an impressive 19th at the national meet in 2008, but 14-year-old star Sam Wilkins’ points did not count towards their tally as she was still affiliated with South Gippsland Bass Swimming Club.
Wilkins, fresh from a sensational nine-medal showing at the Victorian Age Championships in January, enters the competition ranked in the top 10 in Australia in five events.
She is the second-fastest Australian in her age group in the 100m butterfly, third in the 200m individual medley, fifth in both the 100m and 200m backstroke and seventh in the 100m freestyle.
Wilkins won individual silver and bronze medals and reached four finals at last year’s Age Nationals.
Haileybury also has three others – 18-year-old Roy Pearce, 17-year-old Ally Woodlock and 16-year-old Indra Grant – ranked in the top five in at least one of their races.
Woodlock made her first open final in the 200m backstroke at last month’s Australian Swimming Championships.
She won bronze in the same event at the 2008 Australian Age Championships and is ranked sixth this year.
Waterlions head coach Wayne Lawes is also tipping 15-year-old Emily Moreton to ‘surprise a few people’.
They are among 18 swimmers at the club flying up for the six-day meet that starts next Monday and runs until the following Saturday.
Lawes is excited about his team’s prospects and is looking forward to seeing how his athletes handle the experience.
“I really just expect them to get in and improve their personal-best times and obviously their rankings – whatever they are,” he said. “For me, it’s about them improving under the situation of going to a national championships and in real terms, to me, it’s just another word.
“Obviously there is a higher importance at a meet like this, but really it’s an opportunity for them to swim faster and see what they’ve done since state championships and we swam pretty well at state championships.”
The Waterlions’ Keysborough base is being given a multi-million dollar facelift that will bring it in line with the standards at the Australian Institute of Sport when it is completed in September.
But the construction has interrupted Lawes’ troops’ preparation and has seen them train at the club’s other homes at Berwick and Brighton over the past week.
They have also had to deal with the usual illnesses and injuries in the lead-up, but Lawes feels they are as ready as ever to tackle the nation’s best junior competitors.
“My role as a coach now is not to over-coach. They’ve either done the job or they haven’t done the job,” he said. “It’s just fine-tuning and reinforcing the little skills and one-percenters and just being relaxed about it.
“It’s about letting them have fun and thinking about the challenge and opportunity to swim a personal-best time – it’s another opportunity to learn.”