A impending new addition to premiership captain Richard Howe's family has seen the reins passed on to keeper-batsman Daniel Murfet, and the 23-year-old is rightly optimistic about shooting for the club's ninth consecutive grand final appearance.

"That's obviously the goal," Murfet said.

"We want to finish top of the ladder and be in a grand final at the end of the season and push to back up last year's Greater Northern Cup win.

"But there's also a lot of other really good teams with really good squads - I think all the five teams in first-grade have the potential to finish in the top two or three.

"It probably just comes down to being consistently good enough to be the best and we'll be trying to do that like every other team."

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One veteran middle-order batsman will replace another in the line-up as coach Matthew Battle returns to cover the retired Sean Stevenson, while consistent UK import Will Donald has returned to Yorkshire club Whitby.

Bracknell's Justin Curbishley and all-rounder Nathan Parkin have returned to add depth to a side which should again be a heavy contributor to the Greater Northern Raiders.

Murfet said his players had shown huge commitment to pre-season despite a somewhat challenging training schedule.

"We've been training until 10pm on a Wednesday night because of what we've been allocated but I couldn't ask much more of the guys," he said.

"Guys like Jonathan Chapman - he's been at Greater Northern Raiders training until 7.30pm, going home for tea and then coming back at 8.30 to train again.

"Corey Briggs has been coming down from Ulverstone to train so commitment's been really good."

It was third time unlucky last season as South Launceston's quest for a three-peat fell at the final hurdle.

But the Knights have shown no signs of dropping off in 2019-20 thanks to an extensive pre-season campaign under coach Dean Hawkins and the addition of two recruits.

Captain Tom Waller said his club had acquired more depth to combat the experience of Westbury and the rising youth of Launceston, Riverside and Mowbray.

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"Hawk started us training in June-July - he got the Ashes bug I think and wanted to get the boys started early ... and the last two months we've been training quite hard," the wicketkeeper said.

"Hopefully Anders will bat and bowl for us - we've had some really good raps from his national coach in Denmark and hopefully he can really improve the club.

"We've also had another one who's an Indian recruit - Ishang Shah - he's a uni student at the AMC and he contacted the club.

"He's played a couple of practice games we've had so far, we went down to Wellington and he bowled some leggies and shows a bit with the bat so I think he could push into our first-grade side."

Number three James Lee looms as the club's only loss from last season but the Raiders representative could still return at some point during the season, while the bowling line-up looks as strong as ever with plenty of part-time options.

One of the biggest challenges will be negotiating a three-week layoff in January.

"As much as possible we'll really look to get from October to December to put ourselves in a good position, win some one-day cricket and hopefully by Christmas time we're around the mark," Waller said.

"We play January 4-5 and then we have a bye on the 11th and 18th and then it's Australia Day weekend, so we have three weeks off there so there's a really big emphasis for us to be in a good position at Christmas time."

Knocked out in the semi-final last season after narrowly missing out on top spot, Alistair Taylor's men are looking to bounce back with a vengeance in 2019-20.

"That's driven us a bit during pre-season to try and get better and improve every day," Taylor said.

"There's a lot of excitement to right that wrong."

The competition's biggest improvers in recent seasons, the Lions are hunting their first grand final appearance in seven years but will need to do so without two of their star all-rounders.

Veteran Rowan Smith and Tom Bennett - who sparked a miraculous win over Westbury last season with his second-ever A-grade five-for - will both sit out the season, leaving space for the Lions' next generation of leaders to emerge.

"It's disappointing to probably not have Rocket and Tom but it just means some other guys are going to have to step up," Taylor said.

"Tom last year probably only played half the games anyway but it just means Cameron Lynch, Ben Humphrey, Zac Oldenhof - our core senior guys there - will have to step up and fill those shoes and I've got every belief in them to do that.

"Zac's just come off a footy flag so his confidence is pretty high right now, Cameron's hitting the ball the best I've ever seen him and Ben's taken on a new leadership role as vice-captain for the club."

Launceston has picked up some new blood however, with St Patrick's College links bringing South African youngster and first-grade prospect Dihan Cloete through the door.

A handful of fringe players are also working hard to cement a permanent senior spot.

"Will Bennett has improved a lot, he made his debut last year and played a couple of games and he's worked really hard during pre-season and Daniel Smith has improved again after coming back to cricket again last year," Taylor said.

"Ethan Conway as well I think has had a really good pre-season and he's hitting the ball pretty well so there's been a lot of improvers."

Riverside captain Tom Garwood hopes a finals campaign is on the cards after exposing a succession of rising stars to first-grade cricket last season.

Cooper Anthes, Sam Artis, Josh Partridge and James Simpson all enjoyed regular A-grade action as the young Blues bolted out to four wins in their first five outings.

They were unable to taste victory in two-day competition, but will be all the better for another pre-season.

"We want to improve on what we did last year - we had a really good start so we've got to learn how to keep going with that and take it into two-day cricket," Garwood said.

"We'll play each game [as it comes] but at the end of the season we want to be playing finals and then we want to go deep into finals."

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The Windsor Park outfit has managed to retain its list throughout the winter and appears set to add an international recruit to the mix in coming weeks.

Matthew Kerrison, the brother of Westbury spinner Alex, will also return to the Blues after playing for Legana in the TCL last season.

"He's been going really well," Garwood said.

"He's a really good fielder and a bit more middle-order experience is what we need, so we're looking to him to play a big part this year.

"Jesse Homan has been a big standout for our pre-season, he's put in a fair bit of work which is good and he's bowling with some good pace in the nets."

James Storay faces a different challenge to Cricket North's other new captain.

Since winning the 2015-16 flag, Mowbray has finished in the bottom two for three consecutive seasons and will need the likes of Sam Freeman, Spencer Hayes and Lochie Geard to get the Eagles off the ground.

"The main aim is to move from the bottom of the ladder," Storay said.

"That's where we finished, we're not overly happy with where we finished last year and if we can string some more consistent games together and knock off some higher sides as we go then the results will take care of themselves.

"We're a very young group but I expect us to be competitive and we're just hoping to do it for longer periods of time.

"I think on our day we'll give it a bit of a shake."

Having lost three of their top four run-scorers from last season in Rohan Pooley, Ben Bodha and Connor Lockhart, the Eagles will rely on Luke Scott, John LeFevre and potentially even Clinton Reid to post big totals but will have options aplenty to choose from in the bowling stakes.

Even with Blake Cassidy and Ben Spinks likely to be pinched by the Raiders, Storay has a wealth of quicks to support rising spinner Freeman.

"We've picked up Jono Jones, he played with us a couple of years ago but had an injury so he didn't bowl much so we're expecting some big things from him," Storay said.

"Justin Reeves is going again and Rik Considine is coming back and playing again so our bowling group will be really strong.

"We've got some good older guys there now that have some experience and that can help our younger guys and I think that'll be our strength."