The Newstead Athletics member destroyed a field of 25 to win the under-16 3000-metres by nearly four seconds (8:48.27) at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletics Centre.

“Sam led from a few laps in and eventually won by about 50 metres. It was a huge field but he took control and looked in no doubt,” Andrews said.

“He might just slip into the under-17 national squad with that run. I’d be very surprised if he didn’t because it’s looking very good for him at the moment.”

The Tasmanian Institute of Sport coach said Clifford will also run the 1500m on Friday.

“I think 3km is probably his pet event but 1500 is good to work on for speed and he may even go up to 5k when he gets older, we’ll wait and see.

“He’s still very young so it’s too early to pick how far he can go but he is doing everything right at the moment.

“He’s just a great kid and has a great coach and good family support which is working really well for him.”

Andrews said Clifford’s win was one of many highlights at the championships, which began on Sunday and run for eight days.

After three days the Tasmanian team had won six gold and six silver medals.

“We’ve had incredible success and have just been blown away. We’ve won so many medals across a wide range of events.

“I’m very proud of the whole team, it’s been really exciting watching them all.

“We’ve got four para athletes here and they’ve been fantastic, winning a heap of medals. We’re very proud of the para program which we’ve been working hard on with Athletics Tasmania to get more athletes involved.”

Improving the open Tasmanian record in the process, Matt Hosie cleared 4.80m to win the under-20 pole vault, 35cm ahead of Victorian Lachlan Burns.

Alex McKillop backed up from his performance at the Australian all-schools championships by taking silver in the men’s under-20 para 200m in a time of 28.36.

Ebony Webb (6:57.55) also claimed a silver medal in the women’s under-18 2000m steeplechase.

In the men’s event, Lachlan Chambers and Harvey Chilcott narrowly missed the medals when they came in fourth and fifth respectively with Lochlan Bromfield eighth.

Jane Hickie broke a Tasmanian record when she clocked 14.42 in the under-17 100m hurdles to qualify fifth fastest and promptly lowered her personal best with another state record time of 14.29 in claiming bronze in the final.

A team of 76 athletes has been named to represent Tasmania including Jack Hale, Hamish and Huw Peacock and Deon Kenzie.