West Coast’s Next Generation Academy reached a noteworthy milestone recently upon making contact with its 10,000^th child for the year.

Eagles general manager of community and game development Richard O’Connell said the watershed moment was a credit to the NGA’s devoted team of employees' ability to work with various Western Australian footballing bodies.

“The collaboration between the West Coast Eagles, the WA Football Commission and the WAFL clubs has been fantastic,” O’Connell said.

“The opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder delivering grass roots football programs across the State is a great example of partnership in action. The commitment of everyone is exactly what WA football is built upon. No matter how dark it is or the amount of rain falling, coaches are enthusiastically investing time to support young people to achieve their dreams.

Manager of game development Adam Selwood said establishing links with the club’s regional zones had been central to the academy’s success.

At present, the academy works with WAFC Districts and WAFL Clubs to add value to their already successful programs in the South West, Great Southern, Goldfields and Pilbara.

“We’ve gone to all the regions within our academy zoning this year,” Selwood said.

“Academy staff have ventured to the Pilbara, Midlands and South West twice and we’ll be making a second trip to the Great Southern and Goldfields later this month.

“We are heading back to the Pilbara later in the year as well to run the Naitanui/VSwans Carnival. We’ve also had ongoing commitments in Perth, providing as many opportunities to metropolitan kids as possible.

“We are committed to building strong relationships with the key people that are helping us out via Naitanui Academy coaching. They will continue to develop programs with the help of the Naitanui Academy so the children can continue their development even if we aren’t there, which is important.”