"We are thinking very positively but we have lost a couple of our better players," Geeves said.

"Sam Cotton is moving to Wynyard partly due to her work commitments and Lauren Hepburn has gone to play in the Hobart league.

"We have picked up Jess Schnoor from South Launceston who is an all-rounder and we have a couple of other young girls who are just trying it for the first time so they are going to be young and raw but with the loss of those experienced players we are going to need to some others to step up."

Geeves said that opening bowler and handy batter Sophie Parkin and batter-wicketkeeper Jean Marie Els would again be important to the team.

"I think despite the loss of Sam and Lauren that we can still be competitive - I think South Launceston will be the team to beat again this year.

"They will have a quite experienced team with three of four really experienced players but we don't mind being the underdogs.

"I think we are pretty balanced in batting and bowling - last year we were probably a bit stronger in our batting but we should bat well and bowl OK."

LAUNCESTON captain Dana Lester retains the role for the second year running, with the Lions finishing third on the table last season.

"This year we have pretty much kept all of our players from last year, which is really good," Lester said.

"We will keep building on the team that we had - we had a lot of new players last year and it is really good that they have stayed on and will continue to build their skills, confidence and understanding of the game.

"And we look forward to building on that this year as well as welcome back a couple of past players and a few new young players as well so plenty of growth in the team."

Lester said off-spinner and batter Maddie Chick would be returning from playing the majority of games last year in Hobart and wicketkeeper-batter Suzie Graney from the ACT will be down to play a couple of games with the team.

"I think this year we are more evenly spread than we were last year when we were probably bowler-heavy and should be much more balanced between batting and bowling," she said.

"We have a good top-four in the batting and a couple of seamers and medium-pace bowlers and spinners, which we lacked last year as well."

The Launceston women's team will be coached this year by first-grade player Tom Gray.

"The girls are really looking forward to working with Tom and he has some great ideas and knowledge that will help the team," Lester said.

SOUTH LAUNCESTON will again be led by captain-coach Belinda Wegman and should field a similar team to last season.

Wegman said they had a few extra younger players in their squad, including Northern representatives such as Courtney Webb, who made the Australian team and is one of the up-and-coming stars.

"There are another three I think who have been picked for under-15 state selection who will hopefully get into that - we are a very young team with a few extras and a couple of us older ones," she said.

"We lost the grand final last year but having an extra year of cricket in the younger girls and state training and Northern team should give them a bit more insight into how to play cricket in the T20 matches and they are incorporating a 40-over match this year, which will help them, as well as a couple of games against the North-West comp."

Wegman said the team had all-round ability but was probably slightly stronger in bowling.

Stacey Norton-Smith and Meg Radford were two of the other teenage players vying for state selection.

MOWBRAY is likely to be without last season's captain-coach Simone Mitchell for the majority of this season but has a former player, Rebekah Illingworth, coming out of retirement to help fill the leadership void.

An all-rounder, Illingworth grew up playing cricket with Mowbray and is a former Tasmanian under-19 representative.

She is the sister of Eagles first-grade player Jerome.

"We should have a similar team to last year with a few new people included," Mitchell said.

"We ended up fourth last season but a couple of times we were short of players and had to field an eight-player team.

"It was our first year in the competition last year and we should still have the same players and are hoping to pick up some new ones too."

Tamieka Sokolski has moved to Queensland and will be a loss as a bowler and fielder and Michaela Hutchins has moved to Hobart.

Danielle Hancock, sister of Mowbray's Greater Northern representative Belinda, is likely to be joining the team, which will be another boost to cover the loss of Mitchell.

"I think we will be better than last year because last season most of our players came from vigoro or had never played on turf before, so the experience they had will be good for them," she said.