Last year: Sixth (10-8)

Gains: Aden Clare, Billy Auldist, Liam Lisle, Zachery Butler, Aiden Heinrich, Justin Lawler

Losses: Harry Weaven, Keith Tallent, Max Tallent (North Albury), Jeremy Luff, Ron Boulton (Chiltern), Deky Yates, Luke Heagney (CDHBU), Josh O'Connor (Jindera)

Most recent finals appearance: 2023

Most recent flag: 2018

Captain: Darcy I'Anson

Who starts the season flag favourites and why?: Osborne and Jindera as equal favourites. Osborne because their players know how to get the job done as they proved last year. Jindera because they've got last year's premiership coach and a lot of fresh faces on top of what's been a nearly good enough list of players for a few years now.

Your likely top-six?: Osborne, Jindera, Lockhart, Oaklands, Henty and Brock-Burrum. I feel it's going to be a really even competition this year. There will be very little room for errors, poor management, injuries or misfortune. A fortnight of squabbling or disunity causing a slightly distracted focus will definitely be reflected in the ladder once everyone has played each other once. I don't think the uneven draw will be a factor this year. Clubs like Henty, Billabong Crows and Lockhart might not have to play Osborne twice but they do have to play each other twice. I'm not expecting any club to drop off from their form of last year. But it does look likely that seven clubs at least will have improved playing lists compared to last year. I'm expecting our losses will be balanced out reasonably well by our ins.

Which side is likely to be the biggest improver?: Jindera, Henty, Lockhart and Billabong Crows. It's very possible this year that CDHBU and RWW Giants will be decent improvers again but might not actually improve their positions on the ladder.

Best player in the competition?: I really haven't seen enough games in the Hume League from last year. I'm still making time to watch the All In Sports live streams from last year. But if Connor Galvin plays anything like his mother played netball in her prime, that would explain the hype around him.

Best recruit in the competition over the off-season?: All of our top age thirds from last year's grand final side. Isaac Norman, Dom Korzeniowski, Kade Griparis are all built like greyhounds, tall and super quick. Will Clohesy looks determined and tough. Ethan Mathews, Rory Harrop and Rhys Kilo are solid consistent competitive performers at training. Josh Quirk is a big lad and I'm very impressed with his hustle. Josh will be a juggernaut once we get him injury free and fully fit. And keep an eye out for a kid called Domenic Vaccaro. Domenic will be turning 17 this year and reminds me of a baby faced Tony Lockett. Once he feels confident in himself training and competing with the men at our training sessions, I'll be very keen to give him an opportunity to get senior experience this year. All our recruits are going to be exciting to watch as they blend into the team. But Aden Clare is a big unit and as tough as a cat's head. Aden hasn't played Aussie Rules for seven years now. When he was 17 he was as coordinated as a baby giraffe wearing size 20 gumboots. But seven years of competitive dirt bike racing and working in the building and construction industry has moulded him nicely. I read a comment the other day by one of his co-workers on The Border Mail trampoline story referring to him as the Human Forklift. It wouldn't surprise me if Aden can't spell concrete but he can definitely lift it.

Which recruit at your club excites you the most and why?: Andrew Corrigan is an elite runner at any level and has terrific foot and hand skills. Andrew i's almost a carbon copy of Carlton old boy, Craig Bradley. I'm guessing he gets his athletic abilities from his father Joe. Corey "Busta" Pearce is going to have a stellar year should he avoid bruising himself too badly because of his eagerness to get his hands to the footy regardless of who unwittingly or otherwise put themselves in his path. Corey's aerobic running stamina and endurance is elite for a young bloke edging towards 200cm. He is also spending a small block of time each training session on the trampoline which should result in him taking a lot more contested marks around the ground and in the goal square. I'm dumbfounded though, despite all his athletic prowess, his power and push up technique is horrendous. I can't even comprehend how he might push himself out of bed each morning. Opposition ruckman will definitely notice once we get a bit of regular upper body strength work into him. Mat Denton, Harry Cozens, Darcy I'Anson, Trent I'Anson, Jake Hill, Brett and Brad Morey and Tom and Coby Eastick are training the house down as well.

How tough was recruiting this off-season compared to previous experiences?: Recruiting has been as time consuming as I had expected. What I wasn't expecting was to be spending the majority of my allocated time for recruiting new players to our club focused on retaining the players we already thought were committed to playing for our club in 2024. Jarod Kositchke and Luke Schilg had almost the entire 2023 senior list recommitted on contracts or player registrations with signatures for the 2024 season. The top age thirds from last year had been interviewed but no contracts or registrations signed because they were all still under age. It was unfortunate for the club that Peter Cook's daughter is a very talented 13-year-old soccer player and earnt the honour of being selected to participate in a local representative soccer academy. The schedule for this Academy includes weekends up until late May. Cookie really only had one choice to make. We're looking forward to seeing him available to play in the second half of the season. Understandably the circumstances created a level of uncertainty for some of our players and this has enabled other options to be put in front of a lot of our players and unfortunately some have taken up those alternative options and opportunities. We've still got eight weeks before the first game against CDHBU. I would be quite content if we can keep every player on our list as things stand now and who haven't already been cleared to another club. But having said that I'm still very confident that we'll have maybe three to five fresh faces at training and available for selection for the opening round.

What have the numbers been like at pre-season training?: We've had 50 individual players attend training at Xavier High School Ovals on a Monday or a Wednesday so for this year. We're going to have approximately 16 players unavailable to play in our first practice match at Mangoplah on Saturday, March 2 due to cricket commitments which kind of explains why only about eight or ten senior players have been consistently attending training. A lot of our young blokes work casual or shift work on Monday's and Wednesday's as well. As soon as the cricket seasons finish we'll be switching to a Tuesday Thursday program.

What are your expectations this season?: Fun, mateship and enthusiastic effort. I'm not the type of coach who'll be making demands on anyone. I expect the players will attend training because they want to be there. Because it's fun, challenging, productive and time well spent. Being a non-playing coach I'll be expecting that every player in my stable who wants to be coached and improve something or anything about themselves with a positive focus will be easily able to demonstrate improved results. Our supporters will notice new standards in performance from every single player. How much improvement will merely come down to each player's availability to resources like time, personal health and well-being. A vision for themselves, a positive and optimistic mindset, their attitude, discipline, consistency, a good work ethic, trust, belief and a little bit of patience. With the effort and dedication the committees and volunteers put into preparing their clubs to be ready by round one. It only makes sense that with seven weeks before the serious stuff starts that any club could find itself in a position that could make it the flag favourites. Obviously a club like Jindera has a nice headstart on a club like us. To their credit Jindera made the bold move of announcing Joel as their 2024 coach while the 2023 season was still up for grabs. Osborne has stability. Holbrook has stability. Howlong, RWW Giants, CDHBU and Lockhart have been building to where they are now, as genuine contenders. Billabong Crows have landed some seriously good recruits from Canberra, putting them instantly in the hunt. Henty's thirds beat our thirds in the grand final last year. So based on the seriously impressive talent of the lads I've witnessed at our training so far I can only imagine how brilliant six to ten of the Henty kids must be. They could possibly shock us all. I haven't heard much about what's going on at Culcairn or Murray Magpies. But as with Billabong Crows, you only need to sign one good player from outside the area and that might turn into seven and all of a sudden it'll all come down to which team gels together the best and has the highest number of fit, healthy players available to pick from at the business end of the year which as of late February is still 182 days away from the first weekend of the finals.

WE SAY: Newly appointed coach Brendan Roberson faces a baptism of fire in his return to the coaching ranks. Roberson was the last coach to be appointed in the Hume league after Peter Cook was forced to step down in late November due to family commitments. Since 2010 the Saints have emerged as a powerhouse of the competition and have made finals every season, winning four flags to equal Osborne as the most premierships won during that period. To highlight the Saints' run of sustained success, even the Tigers missed playing finals in 2011 and 2015. But you get the feeling the Saint's golden era is finally drawing to a close. The departure of Harry Weaven, Keith Tallent, Jeremy Luff and Ronnie Boulton, who are in the Saints' top half-a-dozen players is a stinging blow. With no big name recruits and low numbers at training over the pre-season, it's inevitable that the Saints are on the slide and it would be a major surprise if they could keep their proud recent finals record intact this season. With minimal recruits, Roberson will be forced to turn to youth to remain competitive with the thirds playing off in the grand final last year. But as with any youth policy there is a lot of pain before you see gains and it's hard to see the Saints finishing any higher than the bottom four and the wooden spoon a distinct possibility.

PREDICTION: 12th