TOBY Barr has proved to be a star in securing his selection for Team GB.

The Year 10 Shoreham College pupil, has been selected as goal tender for Team GB at the Roller Hockey Junior Olympics and World Championships in Hawaii this summer.

Keen inline skater Toby plays in goal for his local team the Brighton Stormers based at the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

No stranger to success, he was selected in 2014 for the GB National squad and flew to Las Vegas to compete in the Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympics.

In preparation for this summer’s event Toby is attending monthly training sessions for Team GB in Rotherham.

The 15-year-old said: “To be selected for the squad was amazing and I’m really looking forward to going to Hawaii.

“I’ve been playing for Brighton Stormers now for about seven years and I just happened to go along to a regional trial because a friend of mine was going and I got selected.

“From there I went up to national trials and thankfully they liked my performance and I got selected for the Great Britain squad.”

It’s been an unusual rise to the top for Toby, who started as an eight-year-old playing as an attacking force.

“Starting out,” he said, “I was just doing practice sessions down with the Stormers.

“I played for about two years as a player, and then we lost our goalie.

“They trialled the whole team and in the end I was chosen as second-choice.

“The first choice goalie didn’t really like playing between the pipes, so I took over and it’s just gone from there.”

A goal tender in hockey has been widely discussed as the most thankless position in sport, and Toby thinks the old adage may not be too far from the truth.

He said: “I think it is a bit, but I love it.”

The teenager’s favourite team is the Pittsburgh Penguins, and his number one goalie is New York Rangers’ Swedish legend Henrik Lundqvist.

Not a bad role model for Toby, as Lundqvist led team Sweden with spectacular goaltending to their first ever medal in inline hockey when they won Gold at the 2002 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship.

He signed for the Rangers in 2005 and has stayed there ever since establishing himself as one of the league’s finest goalies.

Toby studies the likes of Lundqvist, Boston Bruins’ Tukka Rask, Philadelphia Flyers’ Ilya Bryzgalov and Penguins’ Marc-Andre Fleury to pick up tips on how to fulfil his dream of playing in the best ice hockey league in the world.

He said: “I just watch them and look at how they play and how they move and try to copy what they’re doing.

“I know it’s pretty much an impossibility, but I’d love to play in the NHL.

“Failing that I’m quite into engineering so I’d really like to start my own ice hockey brand.”