Royston Barney-Smith may still only be 21 years old but the unbeaten junior lightweight is already beginning to speak with the maturity of a wily veteran.

The decorated amateur signed professional forms with Queensberry as soon as he turned 18 years old and burst onto the scene in a blaze of fast hands and quick finishes but has spent the past couple of years quietly accumulating experience.

From the outside, it looks like 2024 was something of a breakthrough year for the southpaw.

Barney-Smith, 13-0 (7 KOs), boxed five times, improving with every outing. There may not be a particularly eye catching name amongst his list of victims but there was a noticeable change in the way he went about his work.

This year has got off to a frustrating start - an ear injury forcing him to postpone this weekend’s scheduled fight with Argentina’s Elias Duguet - but Barney-Smith himself definitely feels like he has moved to a new level.

“Yeah, definitely,” he told The Ring.

“My last two or three fights at the end of the year, it turned over from being a boy and just being happy to look good and try and win the fights. Now I'm starting to put the shots together and get them out of there.

“I'm maturing and turning to a very, very, very big contender.”

As his early opposition became a little more resilient, the stoppages became a little harder to find but Barney-Smith supplemented the invaluable rounds with consistent work at The Ben Davison Performance Centre and built into life as a professional.

That hard work began to bear fruit last year. Barney-Smith stopped three of his opponents but rather than relying on his natural gifts and opportunistic flashes, he began using a more methodical, calculating approach.

Barney-Smith is now self-assured and aware enough to patiently set traps and technically good enough to ruthlessly capitalise when his opponent falls into them. He may still be some years away from his peak but he has also developed physically over the past twelve months.

The sport has begun to slow down for Barney-Smith and he feels like he is quickly becoming a dangerous proposition for the country’s junior lightweights.

“Yeah, for sure,” he said.

“When I'm hitting people now it's not stinging them, it's stopping them in their tracks.

“It's like you enter the zone, if it makes sense. You go into a state of mind where everything's just working well and you can just keep doing it and doing it and doing it and break people down. It's a comfort zone at the highest level.

“That's what makes everything work good.”

Davison and his team are renowned for their forensic analysis of opponents and detailed gameplans but Barney-Smith believes that the foundations of the gym’s success can be found in the amount of time they spend ensuring that their fighters have mastered the fundamentals of the sport.

Davison and Co. will begin to dig a little deeper into their box of tricks as Barney-Smith progresses through the levels but having been in the gym for over three years, Barney-Smith now feels like like he has earned his spot and established himself amongst some big names like Anthony Joshua, Leigh Wood, Moses Itauma to name just three.

He has seen enough to know that whatever level he eventually reaches, the basics will continue to be a daily part of his routine.

“I've had 13 fights now. I'm not a prospect anymore,” he said.

“What we do down the gym is very basic, but it's at a high level.

“It's just getting the basics well trained and then knowing when to use them. What they do is good at catching people out.

“When you get at a higher level, it becomes a lot harder.That's when you mentioned opening up the box of tricks. That's when that comes involved.

Two weeks ago, British and Commonwealth junior lightweight champion, Reece Bellotti, successfully defended his Lonsdale belt for the second time with a dominant ninth round stoppage of Michael Gomez Jnr.

34 year-old Bellotti is at the opposite end of his career to Barney-Smith but has turned away contender after contender and established himself as the man to beat domestically since stepping up from featherweight almost four years ago.

Barney-Smith sees winning the British title as a significant and meaningful step in his journey and is targeting Bellotti’s belt rather than his scalp.

“Yeah, for sure. I'm not looking past this fella [Duguet, in their rescheduled meeting]. I've got a fight for a WBC International [title] but I'm looking to push on this year and try and get that title or be mandatory for that title and be number one in Britain very soon,” he said.

“That's what my goal is. It's a great belt. Once you win the British title, you cement your name in being an elite fighter.

“It's not an easy thing to win. You can fight for them international titles against someone with a great record but when you get a British opponent in front of you who is fit, game and strong it's a whole different ballgame.

“It puts you in the elite level because whoever really wins a British title with a good promoter and a good bit of talent does reach world level. So that's what I'm looking to do.”