MITCH Salter flies out today for what will be his most exciting water polo adventure yet.
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Already the Tamworth 18- year-old has played in New Zealand and Hawaii, not to mention around Australia.
Only earlier in the year he went to Western Australia to play for NSW Country at the Australian Country Men’s Championships.
From there he was selected in the Australian Country men’s side to participate in the Hawaiian International Invitational Tournament.
It will be his second time competing in the annual tournament, which regularly draws upwards of 100 teams.
“I went there in 2011 with the Hunter Academy of Sport team,” Salter said.
“We played in the U16s competition.”
This time he’ll be wearing the green and gold.
Hopefully not for the last time, with Salter carrying ambitions of playing for the Aussie Sharks one day.
He’s the baby of the Aussie side, which also includes former Peel captain and current Hunter Hurricanes keeper Ryan Parker.
Parker also went away on the 2011 trip, co-captaining the side.
The Hawaiian tournament will be Salter’s first time playing with the Australian Country side.
As it was at Karratha playing for NSW Country.
He’d played for junior sides before but not the opens and had little expectation of going any further.
“It’s pretty unreal,” he said.
The NSW side won the gold medal and were fairly
dominant.
“We won our grand final 20-8,” Salter said.
Salter has a fair idea what he’s in for.
“Last time we saw one (of the men’s) game – it was a pretty high level,” he said.
He also played a US team when he went to New Zealand with the 16s Country team.
“They were pretty quick,” he said.
He’s expecting that to be the case next week.
The US sides aren’t usually as big as the Europeans.
The challenge for the Aussies, Salter said, would be clicking quickly.
The fact that seven of the side were part of the successful NSW side, and played together then, should help that.
He hasn’t played a lot of water polo heading in, with the season in recess, but has been conscious of keeping up his fitness.
“I’ve been doing three swimming sessions a week and three water polo (training) sessions,” he said.
“I’ve also been doing gym work three times a week.”
As our photo shows, he’s also been playing a bit of hockey, although that’s just for fun.
The Hawaii tournament gets underway on Monday and runs through to Sunday.