The Storm, who only moved to the South Coast-based league this year from Group 6, want to field a reserve grade and Under 18's side as well as the new club continues to grow.

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While their application will ultimately be decided at the Group 7 AGM in December, the club is confident of taking part.

Schodel, who has coached Western Suburbs at NSW Cup level as well as teams in Group 7 and Group 6, said the ultimate aim was for juniors to have a pathway right through to the NRL.

"I'm excited about it," he told the Southern Highland News.

"Being a new club I'm excited to come in and put my fingerprints on it, build a good culture and hopefully get the local community proud of the boys when they go out there and play football.

"We're not saying we're guaranteed to be in but I'm quietly confident we'll be accepted into first and second grade.

"I know the enthusiasm the Highland Storm board has, I've talked to some players already and when I told them about possibly going into a higher grade they were excited.

"I've coached Group 7 before, it's a strong competition and it's exciting to not only be involved with the seniors but with the juniors and the development as well. We're hoping there will be that pathway between juniors and seniors and then NRL down the track."

Schodel, who played in the rough Brisbane Rugby League in the eighties, said he wouldn't hesitate to promote youth if they showed enough.

"More than likely those Under 18's will come up through the year and play reserve grade and hopefully one or two of them will even come up and play first grade if they're good enough," he said.

"I'm old school, I was playing first grade in Brisbane when I was 17,18 back in the day. If you're good enough you're old enough I say."

Despite the step-up from third to first grade being a large one, the former Canberra Raider said the club would resist the urge to look towards Sydney for recruits and focus on drawing back locals who had moved on.

"There's been a few players who have left the region to go and play in a higher grade," he explained.

"At the moment we're not really sitting down and saying let's go and get these players from Sydney and bring them in. We're looking mainly at trying to get the locals firstly.

"Then if we need a position where we're lacking we might go and look for it that way. It is a big region and while we're not saying we'll go out and win the grand final, we'll be competitive and hopefully that will bring some locals back and maybe some guys from union."

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