A stunning medal haul at the Australian youth titles is a reflection of wrestling's growing success and popularity in the Illawarra, coach Cory Keating believes.

Five Illawarra school students returned from Melbourne last week with a swag of medals.

Chisholm Brown (gold), Sean Keating (gold), Kai Brown (silver), Isaac Samaras (silver) and Michael Constantinou (silver) had success in their age and weight divisions.

The wrestlers train twice a week with Keating at the local PCYC and prepared for the Australian championships for close to 12 months.

They earned their respective places on the ballot by reaching the podium at the state titles.

Now, they begin training for next year's international titles when they will represent their country.

Keating said he couldn't be prouder of his students.

"[I'm] definitely proud ... a couple of them are only young and they were pretty nervous going into the big competition," Keating said.

"Some had up to six fights in the one day.

"They've been training with us for at least a year, attending small PCYC competitions around here.

"They then worked their way up to the state titles and all medalled there, which qualified them for the national titles."

Keating has also risen strongly through the Illawarra wrestling ranks.

He began competing as a youngster at local PCYC events and is now an accredited wrestling coach.

He says while the sport isn't for everyone, he is confident more and more young people are starting to become attracted to it.

"It's slowly growing," he said.

"But it's a very unusual sport, it's quite tough to start off with because you have to use every part of your body and it's something that you have to be quite smart with as well."

Keating will continue to train the five national medallists for next year's world event.