The Year 12 student from Cootamundra - who lost full vision when he was nine years old - has been involved in the sport for three years. 

Over this time he has been selected for the NSW state goalball team, and won the Australian Youth Goalball Championships with NSW two years in a row.

But most recently Rees was selected to attend a Youth Training Camp in Hangzhou, China for vision impaired goalball players.

He spent the holidays competing in the sport that was developed for blind or visually impaired players, in which a ball containing bells is thrown at a goal at the opposing team's end of the court.

“I was very honoured by getting selected, just to see my hard work had paid off,” he said.

According to Rees the competition was fierce against the Chinese who have access to training facilities on a daily basis.

“The experience was pretty life changing because from how we train in Australia compared to how they do is completely different,” he said.

“China train more often, and they’re more disciplined, you don’t see them mucking around or being silly before they play or in training, they’re disciplined, get straight into it, no questions.”

The Australian goalball team did extremely well, winning four of their six games and picking up the bronze medal at the end of the competition.

Australia and China, both in the Asia Pacific region, compete against each other for selection in the Paralympics team for goalball. 

“The Australian team saw the trip as an opportunity to build relationships with the Chinese goalball team as no doubt a number of players from both countries will be in the Paralympic team in the years to come,” Hennessy staff member Brett Cowan said.

Rees now turns his attention to the Australian Goalball Championships to be held in Queensland in October.