With pre-season set to get underway on January 10, new assistant Hicks is looking to boost the depth of the side.

“The team is going to have a new look to it next season,” he said.

“We’re really excited about the direction we’re heading in.

“There’s been plenty of interest in playing on from the squad we had this year, but we’re always looking for new players to come on board.

“We’re targeting newer players, people moving down for university.

“We’ll still retain a fair bit of experience though, which will be good.” 

Hicks was hoping the Strikers could play with a slightly more attacking edge in the upcoming season.

“We’ve struggled a little bit for goals in past seasons, the offence has been a bit limited,” he said.

“We’ll still retain some of the structures we played with this year, but we want the players to recognise where the opportunities are to score and take them.

“It’ll be a higher risk, higher reward style of play.” 

Incoming senior coach Ian Beath said he and Hicks would have plenty of talent to work with coming from the 2015 squad.

“Obviously we want to encourage players to join the side, particularly ones who have been in A or B-grade for a while and are thinking about giving state league a go.

“in saying that, we don't really want too many junior players to come don unless they're confident that they'll be up to scratch.

“We're expecting training to be full-on, we want to improve.

“We've got a great core of players with us from last year, the likes of Ness Leggatt, Chloe Jones, Sarah and Maddy Knight.

“It's not as though we're starting again from scratch.

“My predecessor's put in a lot of work, I'm confident we can expand on that.”