Wednesday 17 December 2014 16:37, UK
Head coach Bill Furniss is looking to youth to provide the remedy for Great Britain in the pool as their World Championships ended with just one medal in Barcelona.
Fran Halsall claimed a solitary bronze for GB in the 50m freestyle, meaning the team missed their medal target of three, 12 months after the three medals they claimed at the London Olympics prompted a root and branch review.
But there were reasons to be cautiously optimistic - with the likes of 17-year-old James Guy, fifth in the 400m freestyle, Craig McNally, sixth in the 200m backstroke, and Daniel Wallace, seventh in the 400m individual medley on Sunday night.
This is something Furniss wants to harness and he believes the juniors can lead by example.
He said: "The attitude of the juniors is no fear and no respect and they are not looking at reputations.
"You look at somebody like James Guy - fantastic. It doesn't matter who you are, he's going to take you on. Here he is, 17 years old, fifth in the world in the 400 freestyle, seeded nowhere coming in.
"I have said to the swimmers that sometimes if you are experienced you think that juniors learn from you, in actual fact I think that can be reversed.
"This time I think our seniors can learn from our juniors. No fear, take it on, have a go - in a controlled, right way - but I think that is something certainly we have learned."
Furniss, along with new performance director Chris Spice, only started in their roles in April, leaving the pair scant time to have any impact with their desired performance team not even in place yet.
Spice added: "From our point of view this was an assessment meet and it's a brutal assessment of where we are, our impact hasn't even begun yet.
"So, as soon as we get our leadership team on board we'll be looking at what we are going to do at the front end of next year to make a real difference. What we do know is that things cannot stay the same."
