Dakota Thomas has moved "one step closer" to realising her Super Netball dream by earning a training partner contract with Australia's most decorated club.
The Kilaben Bay 20-year-old has grown up idolising the NSW Swifts.
From Monday, she will be living and breathing everything Swifts when the Super Netball champions hit the court for pre-season.
"It's an ecstatic feeling," Thomas told the Newcastle Herald.
"This has been a goal for the past couple of years, since making the ANL [Australian Netball League] team with the [NSW] Waratahs [in 2019]. It is a bit surreal being able to be in a team environment that you've looked up to for a lot of your life. I just can't wait to see what that environment gives me and what I can take from it."
The athletic defender, who plays for Central Coast Heart in the NSW Premier League, has been in the Swifts Academy for the past two seasons and was one of six players to gain training partner elevation.
The Academy underpins the Swifts and provides further pathway opportunities to aspiring players from across the state.
"If I train well enough and if someone unfortunately gets injured or has to step out for the week due to other circumstances, I could be lucky enough to be pulled up onto the bench [for Super Netball]," Thomas said.
She plans to make the most of the opportunity, relocating to Sydney and putting her Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science studies on hold for the interim.
"I want to become physically stronger because I want to be able to be told that if someone unfortunately steps out that I am the next best pick," Thomas said.
"So, the goal now is to be as fit and capable as I can be in that position.
"I also want to be more tenacious. Coming back from a previous injury, I felt that I did lose a bit of that tenaciousness, so I'm hoping being in that environment it will come back and I'll be firing again."
Training in the Swifts environment puts Thomas among a host of Australian players, including Diamonds pairing of Sarah Klau and Maddy Turner.
"Both of the Swifts defenders have been at the Aussie camp and it's going to be so awesome to learn straight from them," Thomas said.
Manly pair Chelsea Mann and Audrey Little, Sutherland's Lili Gorman-Brown and Laura Towell plus Wagga Wagga's Sophie Fawns also earned training partner contracts with the Swifts.
Swifts coach Briony Akle said centre and premiership-winner Tayla Fraser was an example of a training partner progressing to the senior squad.
