’What better place to prepare than outside in the Sunshine Coast?’

Those were the words of Isle of Man head swimming coach Lee Holland ahead of Team Isle of Man’s journey to Australia earlier this week. Speaking before their flight to Manchester, Holland was in a confident mood regarding his five swimmers - Charlotte Atkinson, Steph Brew, Guy Davies, Laura Kinley and Niamh Robinson.

’The team are ready, they’re in high spirits and they’re in good form. The preparations have gone well so far and we’ve still got two and half weeks before we start racing. This is an opportunity for these guys to live the athlete lifestyle and focus on training, the nutrition and resting up. The rest and recuperation is a massive part.

’The time that we’re out there gives us time to adjust, we don’t have to worry about time zones and that sort of thing because we’ve got so much time before we actually start racing.

’We’ve got four athletes that have been before and we’ve got one that it’s their first games. My hope for them is all for them just to go and execute their race plan and follow their strategies that they’ve been working on for the last 12 to 18 months.

’I’m looking at those that went to Glasgow in 2014 to maybe improve on their places from last time, while with (debutante) Steph [Brew] we’re looking at personal best times.

’Wherever that brings us position-wise, whether that advances us to a semi-final or a final maybe, then that’s a bonus. If we can we improve on what we did last time or improve our personal bests, that’s all I can ask for.’

Holland also admitted that plans are already afoot for the next Games in Birmingham 2022:

’We’re already highlighting those athletes in the sort of age group now that we’d be hoping to see come through. The younger athletes are already thinking about what the qualifying times are going to be and they’re going to be watching to see the sort of standard they need to reach in four years’ time.’