Faced with the might of Hadspen and Longford, the reigning A-grade premiers have recruited Sri Lankan first-class duo Ramesh Nimantha and Tharushan Iddamalgoda and ex-Chieftain Amal Ranawaka to front their first top-flight campaign in 10 years.

A top-order batsman and off-spinner, Nimantha hit his maiden ton for Sri Lanka Navy late last year while left-hander Iddamalgoda is a leg-spinner boasting best first-class figures of 4-39.

The duo's new captain-coach Sean Barry, who joined from ACL alongside Drew Clark, Brendan Reid and several others last season, said anything was possible heading into the season.

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"We won a premiership in A-grade - that was the first step and this year's the next part of the process," Barry said.

"We don't put a limit on anything.

"In an ideal world we'd like to win a premiership but one step at a time - make finals and be competitive with the top teams, but you don't put a limit on anything you do."

Hadspen ended a run of three-straight Longford flags last season with help from an impressive array of Sri Lankan talent led by league MVP Thanuka Dabare.

An under-19 national representative, Dabare was joined in the Chieftains line-up by star quick Sameera Vishwaranga, Sithara Perera and Ranawaka.

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Ranawaka will face his old club in the TCL's first round on October 19 and given the Chieftains' slow start last year, a Beaconsfield victory is not out of the question.

"We play them first up so it'll be a good test to see where we're at, [but] you don't expect to play your best cricket in the first game or anything like that," Barry said.

"These guys have only just got here and we saw with Thanuka last year it took him a few weeks to get into it."

Ranawaka has been the doorway for much of the league's Sri Lankan talent in recent seasons and was crucial to getting both Nimantha and Iddamalgoda to Beaconsfield.

"I brought Thanuka from Sri Lanka and Vishwa [Vishwaranga] from Melbourne," Ranawaka said.

"Then I thought I'd done my job for Hadspen and this is time to move to [Beaconsfield] and help them bring more confident cricket in the TCL and give them some experience and skill-set combination.

"I'm pretty sure that for the time being the TCL is more competitive than the NTCA."

And the Swans could still have more talent coming through the door.

"There's another guy coming from Melbourne next week," Ranawaka said.

"He's a really good top-class off-spinner so we're in a pretty positive mind that we can give a good competition to the other teams."

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