Ingles made his return to the elite training base to battle it out against the top junior athletes in Australia, including his own best mate Patrick Mills.

“There are five guys here that were at the AIS a year or two ago and we’ve all come back to play this week,” Ingles said.

The 19-year-old Rookie of the Year teamed with fellow AIS graduates Jeff Dowdell, Adam Gibson, Ryan Kersten and new South Dragons recruit Brad Hill to twice defeat the national side.

“We played two games against the under-19 Australian team and beat them by 20 or so points in the first game and then by four points in the second game,” Ingles said.

“My best mate (Mills) is in the side so I played against him and about three or four other guys I was at the AIS with in my second year, so it was good to catch up.

“We played six 10-minute quarters each game and then had a chat with the team and they asked questions about when we were at the AIS and when we’ve played internationally and all that sort of stuff.”

The week-long training camp came to an end last night, with the junior team now fully focused on competing in Serbia in July.

Ingles will continue to train at the Canberra academy before returning to Melbourne next week.

“Today I worked out by myself with one of the coaches and I’ll do that every day and do weights,” he said.

“I’m back in Melbourne on Wednesday and I’ll get back into training pretty full-on once I arrive because I’ve got Boomers commitments coming up, so I’ll get back into the gym.”

Ingles’ dream debut for the South Dragons is now all but a memory for the 19-year-old prodigy, who is already looking ahead to next season.

And he’s excited by what’s in store.

“Obviously with Nick Horvath in the team we’ve got a true centre now instead of having to play small ball, and Cortez Groves is an awesome player,” he said.

“Hopefully Shane (Heal), Jacob (Holmes), Brent (Hobba) and myself can continue our form from last year and I’m sure Luke Martin and Brad Hill will do really well in the new environment too, so the season should shape up well.”