Bowls star: Clayton's Cain Hanley bowls for Victoria at the national under-18 championships last week. Picture: Bowls Australia
CLAYTON bowls player Cain Hanley believes he has taken a lot of lessons from his first national championships in Tasmania.
The 15 year old has joined Clayton from his home town of Tocumwal hoping to take his bowls to the elite level.
He got a taste of that standard at the national championships where he took home a bronze medal in the triples competition.
Hanley said he needed to learn how to take advantage of situations during matches.
"I need to get used to greens that are different to each other during competitions," he said.
"I also need to get to know other players' tactics and game play, so I can take as many opportunities as you can take."
Hanley said he enjoyed playing at national championships level.
"It was a new experience and I found it very exciting and the people were very energetic and that made it easier to keep up with playing for five days," he said.
He also took some solace from the Victorian team performing well against much stronger opposition from New South Wales and Queensland.
"We thought we would get thrashed," Hanley said.
"But we hung in there even though we had a tough draw and faced a few Australian players in the Queensland side.
"I feel I bowled all right and was proud of myself."
Hanley has joined Clayton for this current season playing in premier division of the Bowls Victoria Saturday pennant competition.
He and his mum drive three hours each way to Clayton for matches and trainings.
"The travel is all right with me but Mum is a bit crazy to drive me this far," Hanley joked.
"There is not enough competition at home so I want to play as higher level as I can with Clayton and get as many wins as I can on my resume.
"I have a few years left at under-18 level so I want to make sure I can get back into the Victorian team against next year."