This year the program has gone to new levels, with the 21 scholarship holders committing to a far larger workload than previous years, NIAS’s Pip Benham said.

“ The program goes from strength to strength each year and this is our best year of development and structure thus far,” she said. 

“The squad has had some outstanding results to date this year. 

“All athletes are in the top eight in their respective age groups in the current North West Regional Junior Development Series events. 

“Our first official NIAS tennis trip was to Inverell in March where we had several winners and runners up in a high-class tournament. 

“All of the squad members have been travelling away on a weekend basis to tournaments near and far to compete for national points with every squad member  improving their national ranking so far this year. 

“We have a highly talented squad this year and it’s great to see the level of improvement on court from these kids in a short space of time.

“The squad is now in training and preparing for the June long weekend national point score tournament in Grafton.

 Today the NIAS Armidale City Bowling Football squad will depart Tamworth for a Sydney camp. 

The squad will be hosted by Newington and tomorrow   will train under Newington’s Director of Football Brian McCarthy. 

On Saturday NIAS will play Newington and that night will watch Sydney FC vs Tottenham Hotspurs at Homebush Stadium. 

The weekend will conclude with a game against Knox.