WARILLA-Barrack Point Surf Club's Matt Sperring is certainly a young man focused on attaining his long-term goals.
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The 15-year-old has just returned from the NSW Surf Lifesaving titles with three gold medals, but has now set his sights firmly on the Australian titles on the Gold Coast next month.
"I am thrilled with my results from the state titles and considering I have only been involved in surf lifesaving at Warilla for four seasons, I am happy with how I am going," he said.
"I originally joined Port Kembla five years ago, and Shane Dowell approached me at the Sydney Water carnival and asked if I was interested in joining his club and training with him and learning the board, so I decided to give it a go."
But things really didn't start well for the youngster.
"At my first training session at Warilla I just couldn't stay on the board in a shore break and was going from side to side - it was a bit embarrassing, but I kept trying and got a lot of help from some of the older guys in the club.
"I just turn up to training, train hard and always do my best.
"The best you can do on the day is the best you can do - that's what I try to do."
His incredible stamina was tested after his win in the surf swim, ironman and Cameron relay with team-mates Jack Bonetig, Jacob Harrison and Corey Bagnall.
They also came fourth in the teams swim.
"The team event was really pretty special - doing things with your mates for the club is really important," he said.
"I also won the 15s ocean swim and ironman, then got back to Sydney and swam in the 1500 metres at the state swimming titles and in fact took a total of 41 seconds off my personal best with that too. It means that I will now do the double when I take part in the national titles and will then back up the following day for the swimming nationals.
"We are then heading off to New Zealand, where I was born before coming to Australia when I was two, for a break."
Meantime he wants to stay motivated and set realistic goals.
"I really look up to Ali Day and Hayden White who came through Warilla juniors and have achieved so much - they are my role models," he said.