Waratah Netball Club are a small entity hoping to eventually make it big.
But they will be taking a realistic approach to their history-making season playing in the top tier of Newcastle Netball Association (NNA) competition.
NNA revealed on Thursday that Waratah would replace outgoing Inner Glow in the Greater Bank Series (GBS) next year.
Over the years they have fielded teams as high as A grade but never at the top level.
It is a move Waratah president Nicole Cadogan said the club have been planning towards for the past couple of years.
"We have always wanted to have a team within the highest grade but, because previously we haven't had the ability of players and they've gone looking elsewhere, we've never been able to get there," Cadogan said.
"So we implemented our strategic plans and goals a couple of years ago and one of those was to have a team in the top division."
The club formed in 1987 as Waratah West Netball Club. It was known as Waratah Leagues Netball Club for a period before assuming its current identity.
"We've always been a smaller club," Cadogan said.
"We've never had the numbers such as Souths and Wests have had. Generally, we only have one team within the age groups that we can offer.
"We do have juniors and seniors. We've always had a mix of both but never of competitive ability to be able to break into division one and be able to keep those players."
Player development and retention was motivation to make the move.
"We do have talented players in both seniors and juniors but generally we do have an attrition rate," Cadogan said.
"Our juniors do have that varied ability within each team, so you do find the ones that are striving to become better and do want to reach the heights of netball go elsewhere to be put into the division one teams.
"Our plan was to be able to attract and retain those senior and junior players and also to build our coaching pool to attract better coaches so we can start to grade our teams and also have the skilled coaches wanting to come through as well."
Waratah are in the midst of holding trials for the Greater Bank Series, which comprises championship, open and 23s divisions.
Eight clubs make up the GBS and the 2023 season has been set to begin on April 28.
"It's very exciting times for us," Cadogan said. "There's been a lot of hard work put in behind the scenes to get us to this point.
"We know it's going to be hard for us next year, relying on players leaving the established teams to come to us, so we are realistic that next year will probably be a difficult year. But for the next two years it will definitely be growing and attracting those players."
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