Lake Cathie-Bonny Hills Junior Rugby League Football Club are going places.
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Going straight into the Group 3 senior rugby league competition, in fact, after the club received the green light to field a team in the under-18s for the first-ever time in 2023.
Within five years the club has ambitions of fielding a first grade Group 3 team.
Vice president Mick Nixon said instead of playing for another club at the completion of their junior days - talented youngsters Ben Drewitt, Doug Toomey and Bailey Asbury led the charge to stay in Raiders colours.
Normally they would have had the option of joining either Port City Breakers or Port Macquarie Sharks as the Raiders didn't field senior grades.
The key to how successful Lake Cathie-Bonny Hills' long-term plan will be depends on other clubs such as the Breakers or Sharks looking closer to home and not casting the player net into the Camden Haven.
"This will be a failure from day one if other clubs come and poach our players so they need to give us a little bit of concession and let our kids stay at our club," Nixon said.
"It also gives somewhere for the Camden Haven kids to come as well and the junior kids can now see there is somewhere for them to continue playing in the area."
The under-16s defeated Port Sharks in the grand final in 2022 which would have previously been the end of their association with the club, but the players had other ideas.
"The players themselves approached us as a committee throughout the year and said 'we would like an under-18s, can we stick together? We don't want to go to other clubs'," Nixon said.
"From that point on we started to put things in place and do the groundwork to the point where they've now been approved and are right to play next year in Group 3."
Nixon knows the plan will take some work, but also understands they will have an idea of its success early.
"It's a big wish, but we'll know in 12 months where we're heading," Nixon said.
"People like [club stalwart] Rod Nugent have put their heart and soul into the club and are very excited because they're seeing a pathway for these boys to continue.
"Hopefully after two years of under-18s we can then work closely with the senior team and look at a reserve grade team and then build to hopefully a first grade team."
