Despite only having picked up a bow seriously a year ago Sean Pianca has quickly risen through the ranks and will represent New South Wales at the National Youth Archery Championships in Armidale next year.

NSW Archery Junior co-ordinator Steve Salmon said Sean has the raw determination needed to reach his goals in the solo sport.

“From our point of view as coaches, one of the best things Sean has going for him is his concentration and a lot of willingness to improve,” Salmon said.

“He went to the junior nationals earlier this year and he had a matchplay tournament in that and he took that a long way.

“I watched him quite a bit during those nationals and he seemed to handle the pressure quite well during that matchplay.”

Often it is the psychological side of the sport that is the hardest to master, with the pressure to make millimetre perfect adjustments according to surrounding conditions the difference between first and last.

Salmon said Sean had already shown maturity beyond his years for pressure situations, but said NSW Archery would continue to coach him in mastering any mental demons he has when competing.

“It’s pretty hard to teach the kids the mental side of the sport, a lot of the drills that he does are designed to put a lot of pressure on him,” he said.

“But a little bit later in his career he’ll be introduced to sports psychologists, so that element of archery is very important because all world championships are matchplay.

“He’s been doing a lot of training with us up here in Sydney and at the end of his time here I give him a few things to work on.

“Almost without exception he comes back to us a better shooter, so obviously he’s working hard on his own, which is hard because neither of his parents are shooters, so they’re not able to correct him at the time.

“If he was at local at my club for example he would be a lot further on in his progression, but he has still improved vastly in the past year considering he has been away from his coaches.”