The side’s only loss at this stage is Caitlyn Batson, while Jo Taylor will be coming back to the side after recovering from knee surgery. 

A Grade coach Cheryl Sudholz has been reappointed for another year in charge and is hoping for another successful season.

“We're hoping to continue last year’s success and hope to play finals in 2018,” she said.

“We have an abundance of girls and everyone has been to training since the start of February. 

“The squad is basically the same as last year. We have pretty much had the same team since 2015. We are very comfortable with the way we play on the court.”

Sudholz said the middle of the season would be tough for Natimuk United’s A Grade side. 

“We don't have the best run in the middle of the draw playing only one game in four weeks with interleague, a bye and then the long weekend, but we hope to come home strong,” she said.

“As a club, we were ecstatic to get five of our teams into finals last year, so we hope we can go that little bit further in all grades this year.”

With most rival clubs tipping Natimuk United to again be the team to beat this season, it will be interesting to see how the team handles being premiership favourites. 

Sudholz said she had not thought much about being the reigning champions.

“Obviously we would love to win it again this season,” she said.

If the side can stay largely injury-free and successfully navigate the middle of the season, Natimuk United is every chance to win its second premiership in a row in 2018.

The Rams start their season at home to Noradjuha-Quantong on April 7.

What are the strengths of this team?

The strength is that everybody has played together for so long. A core of us have probably played together for 15 years. We know each other’s play and don’t even have to call for the ball. We aren’t as fast as some of the younger teams, but sometimes that helps us as we are composed in the play.

We can all talk to one another and if something isn’t working we can talk amongst ourselves and no one takes offence to anything.

What has you most excited for this season?

Every new season brings new possibilities. I’m excited to see how other teams go as well. Other teams bring in new players and we learn and adapt playing other people. 

What are you expecting from the competition in 2018?

I haven’t heard a lot about other teams so far this year. I’m mainly hearing about teams losing and gaining players. Laharum is going to be similar to last year if not the same, so they will be ones to watch. I think it’s going to be a strong, competitive year in the A Grade.