Craig Bosley's form may have deserted him on the greens but a conversation with his playing partner yielded dividends.

"The Lavington player we've recruited this year, James Oeser, I was in a position where I played golf with a couple of his coaches and got a bit of background on him there," Bosley explained.

"I was very ordinary. It was the worst game of golf I've played all year.

"I was playing with Mark Sanson and it was an absolute shocker.

"He was wondering what the hell was going on but I think I had other things on my mind.

"By all reports, James is a ripping bloke and ticked all the right boxes so that's why we were so keen to go after him.

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"He's been at Lavington for a long time and has played over 60 games of O and M seniors, so he's going to bring a lot of experience and knowledge."

Bosley expects a significant player turnover at Culcairn, who finished third in the Hume League last season before losing to Osborne in the preliminary final.

"It's always a challenge going to a club that is high up on the ladder," he admitted.

"I find that harder than taking a club that's lower down.

"You want to maintain that momentum and you want to make sure the club goes forward.

"I'm walking into a club that's been built up over a number of years and they've got a good playing group.

"But as far as I'm concerned, we're starting from scratch with everybody. I saw a few games last year but not a great deal.

"We had our one-on-one meetings and there was a mixed feeling there.

"Some blokes said they'd just had enough of football and were ready to retire and other blokes were set on trying their skills at a higher level which is fine.

"We managed to talk a couple out of retirement, the younger fellas are enthusiastic and if you've got a good mix of young and old, they feed off each other and that helps drive momentum.

"There's a quite a few blokes we're talking to who haven't made their mind up and that's a good sign because most of them have made their mind up by November or December.

"We're hoping to grab them in the next two weeks and sign them up.

"There are no big names coming to the club which are going to cause headlines and that's fine.

"We've lost five or six really good players to the O and M but every year you get a huge turnover of players.

"You probably get 10 new faces in and six or seven go out so if we can retain the list we've got at the moment and build on that over the next couple of years, we'll be in a good position."