Not only is there a flight of fresh faces in the flock this year, but there's also been a facelift at the Macksville Rugby League Club.
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Gone are the butcher's apron blues and whites that hark back to a time now sadly past. This year the Sea Eagles will come swooping out in the maroons and whites of their namesakes.
Club president Dean Hillery made the captain's call to bring back the club's colours from his childhood.
"When I was growing up in the seventies when Dad was here, we played in maroon. As I understand it, one of our major sponsors at the time was a huge Manly fan and part of the sponsorship deal was to rebrand the Butchers to the Sea Eagles," he said.
"Last year in the Indigenous round, we had maroon jumpers and they were immensely popular, so we decided to give it a go for 2020."
He said the response from players and the club has been "overwhelmingly positive" with the only flack coming from local Canterbury supporters.
"Yeah, I think it's great - vintage," Under 18s co-coach Joe Borg said.
"Pretty excited to see the boys run out in them," First Grade coach Matt Hyland said.
But it's not just its image the club is improving on this year. There is also a consolidated effort to bring the Sea Eagles and their affiliated junior club - the Bowra Tigers - closer together.
Dean and the Committee hope that building up loyalty between the two clubs will help translate into a greater retention rate of players moving from junior to senior league.
"People are going to whatever club they want - they don't seem to see coming to the Sea Eagles as a natural progression," he said.
"The idea came from Gary 'Gonzo' Jarrett - one of my biggest inspirations here."
This year the Sea Eagles will proudly wear the Bowra Tigers emblem on their sleeves. And more have been encouraged to be involved in junior games in a coaching capacity.
The Tigers' Under 16s will be welcomed into the fold for some of the Sea Eagles' pre-season training.
And Dean said they're planning to run a junior league game before the seniors kick off at a Sunday home game this season.
There's also a panel of new faces on the coaching bench this year.
First Grade coach Matt Hyland joined the club last year, fresh from Sydney.
He's trained with the Rabbitohs' top squad and played for the North Sydney Bears, and is hoping to bring some of the skills he's picked up along the way to his time with the Sea Eagles.
There's natural ability here. If I can teach a bit of technique, I think we can get close to winning the comp.
- Matt Hyland
Jimmy Collison is taking on the Reserves this year, and Luke Shields and Joe Borg are sharing the coaching role of the brand new Under 18s side.
"We're starting from scratch. The team from last year was very dominant, but this is a total rebuild," Luke said.
"I don't think we'll go undefeated and win the comp again, but our aim is definitely to make the finals," Joe said.
While this coaching gig is something new for both Luke and Joe, they're confident they have the support around them to do the job.
"We train together, and we've got Matty and Jimmy and the Committee. We're not being left out to dry - there's a lot of people here to help us out," they said.
Superstar coach Relle Donovan has returned to coach the League-Tag team - made up of a majority of last year's grand finalists.
"But we've also had a lot of interest from new girls who liked what they saw last year - which is nice," she said.
"Most have come from junior league-tag so they already have skills, it's just about training them up in our style."
Relle said the team is building on what they laid down last year, and have aspirations of making this year's grand final too.
But 2020 is a brand new season - the girls are just excited to get back out on the paddock.
And with summer sports seasons ending this week, the girls can focus on their league-tag game.
The past two weeks have been hard for the club with rain drowning out any chance of training. But Dean said the enthusiasm is there, with two new players at Tuesday's training.
And he said the catastrophic fires haven't affected numbers at all: "Footy gives these guys an escape and somewhere to release pent up energy".
He said he's disappointed the Roosters won't be flying this season, with the Nambucca Valley missing their local derby for the second year running.
"We feel an affinity with Nambucca and we'd love to have them back in the comp," he said.
The official competition doesn't start until mid-April, but the teams are preparing for their season debut at a trial match against the Comets at Coffs, Saturday week.