Jack Waller

Jack Waller admits London 2012 will be a once in a lifetime experience.

But last winter was pretty good too for the centre-forward from Battle.

Waller comes from a swimming family and moved north to join the elite water polo set-up in Manchester after impressing for the Invicta club in Kent.

But he has ventured further afield since then and spent last season in Barcelona playing for Sant Andreu.

Waller said: “I've been at various clubs for the last few years.

“I had a year in Germany and before that I was in Australia for four months.

“Last year I was in Barcelona but the season finished in May and now I'm looking for another team.

“It's a professional sport in Spain.

“They sent us away to get more experience which can help the Great Britain team.

“It's a nine-month season and I trained two or three times a day, then play a game every Saturday.

“It was good fun and a good way to learn.

“Barcelona is a lovely city and it was good from my point of view because there are eight water polo teams in the city.

“Every week we played training games, then we have the league game on a Saturday.

“It was just an incredible experience to play with that many players at such a high level.”

Waller's job is as much about taking out defenders as it is about scoring goals.

He said: “I'm a centre forward. My position is in front of their goal.

“My job is to get goals and majors (which involves drawing fouls from defenders).

“I want to force exclusions (sin-binnings) so we can play with an extra man.”

Despite his Catalan adventure, the 22-year-old is keen not to be too dismissive about the league which launched him in the sport.

He added: “I wouldn't say our domestic league over here isn't good but it isn't professional.

“We just get more experience going abroad.”

Which begs the question: What can the Brits expect to achieve against the best national teams in the world?

Waller said: “We will do the best we can. We are training as hard as we can and hopefully we compete with the top teams.

“We have got a hard group.

“The top four teams in Beijing are in our group but hopefully we can cause an upset and get everybody behind us.

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