Teenage water polo star Matt Wilson on verge of long-awaited Australian Sharks cap

Wilson has been in the Australian Sharks national squad since November 2020, but is yet to achieve a long-awaited international cap.

That may all be about to change this year, though, with the world championships in a few months' time and the 19-year-old making a claim to get the nod.

"I'm in the squad at the moment and did all the lead-up to Tokyo last year, but trying to push to make a touring team," Wilson said.

"For Tokyo I wasn't expecting to be picked in that side, but that was the end of the Olympic cycle and a lot of guys have retired now, which gives me an opportunity to push to be in that team."

Following the Games, Wilson has continued training hard in the Water Polo ACT competition.

Wilson will be in action on Saturday on grand final day at Stromlo Leisure Centre. The lower grades begin from 9am with the first grade men's match the finale at 4.30pm.

He'll be competing for the Nordic White team with fellow young up-and-comers, against their second club team in the comp, the more experienced, Nordic Blue.

It's not an unfamiliar position for Wilson, having competed in the last five grand finals, and last year Nordic White winning the grand final.

It's the perfect lead-up to the World Championships coming up in June after the season, with the Aussie team expected to go into camp shortly before then, and Wilson plotting a move to Spain later in the year.

"I'm training to be in contention for the world championships and move over to Europe later this year to play professionally," he said.

Wilson said achieving his goal of earning a national team cap would mean the world not only to him, but also to his mum who has been in his corner every step of the way.

"She pushes and encourages me a lot to put as much into it as I can," he said.

"I've been doing water polo for 10 years and I've been living at home with my mum, and she's been woken up early mornings taking me to training for so long.

"Then there's tours and paying for everything, so it'd mean a lot to see all the work pay off."

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