With 21 players leaving the club including 10 members of the grand final squad, it was a case of reassessing and looking to get players on board to cover for the turnover.

A pleasing aspect of the turnover according to coach Jason Bertacco is all of the players have come from the area.

“We count ourselves pretty lucky that we have been able to final 20 players to fill the spots,” he said.

“Some of them are old Hanwood players who have taken a few years off and are coming back into the fold.

“To be filling the teams with all local players is really pleasing for the club because we didn’t have to go looking outside of the area.”

While there are obvious negative impacts of losing a large chunk of your playing group, Bertacco said there are some pretty big positives as well.

“We have a good group of 16s and 18s, and it will be exciting to see them come into the side,” he said.

“It is going to take us a while to get use to the new systems and will be a bit of a grind to start off with, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“With the turnover, you get new faces, and fresh ideas and the club is really happy with where we are sitting.”

While Hanwood did spend the offseason looking to enter the Wagga competition, which didn’t eventuate, Bertacco said the club is focused on growing the football in Griffith.

“We had a lot of people who were interested in playing in the Wagga competition,” he said.

“Now we have to return our focus to Griffith and making sure we help grow football in the area and support the competition. This is pretty evident when you look at the fact we have two teams in the men’s, women’s and over 35s competition.”

The two Hanwood sides will go head-to-head at Hanwood Oval starting at 3pm on Sunday