What started out as a simple chat between former team-mates turned into an "inspiring" opportunity for some of the region's best young netballers.
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Players and coaches from NSW Premier Netball League club North Shore United recently came up to Tamworth to train with and mentor the Northern Inland Academy of Sport netball squad.
The start of an ongoing partnership, the seeds for the visit were sown from a conversation between NIAS head coach Kaitlin Driscoll and NSU's resident NIAS alumni Charlotte Raleigh.
Although a few years older, Driscoll had played with Raleigh during her time in NIAS.
"So her and I just started talking over messenger about how I was coaching and talking about her achievements; I'd just been kind of saying how great she'd been going," Driscoll explained.
"And then the idea kind of spiked in her mind of let's do something, which I was all for.
"Then she, god bless her, took it and ran with it and went back to her team."
The day entailed a few hours of skills work, an education session and finished with a game which the NSU players jumped in on, which Driscoll said the girls loved.
Overall she said it was an "absolutely amazing experience" for the squad.
"Being as passionate as I am about netball, it was just so awesome to see our rural athletes get an opportunity like it and just to see the interaction between the NSU girls and our NIAS netballers," she said.
"They were so supportive, they were engaging. The girls just had the biggest smiles on their faces all day."
It was also inspiring for them to be able to hear and learn from Raleigh, who spoke about her journey and the hard work it took to get to where she is now.
"It was so powerful; as someone that's been there, like right where they're sitting at this point in time," Driscoll said.
"She was there at some point and now she's in the NSU team playing in the Premier League in Sydney and she's also in the Swifts Academy side and she's playing for the state team as well."
It was the best reinforcement to them that there's no reason they too can't realise their dreams.
Only early into the program and with a new-look squad - only three or four of the 16 are returning from last year - Driscoll said the visit came at a really good time.
They'll have another great learning opportunity this weekend, heading down to Sydney for the annual Academy Camp.
Run by Netball NSW in conjunction with the Regional Academies of Sport, the two-day camp will incorporate skills sessions on the Saturday where they'll be coached by state and other high performance coaches.
On Sunday they'll play games against some of the other academies, which Driscoll said will be a great lead-in for them to the Academy Games in April.