Coaches Dan Roden and Dannie Carstens will co-lead the side's 2021 campaign.

"We've coached together before, we know one another really well so from that perspective we actually complement each other really well," Roden said.

"We have different skillsets: I come from the purely non-player angle, where Dannie comes from the experience of being a player."

The Cavs will be without Lucy Dennis and the talents of goal shooter Melody Philpott this season.

"With Mel, her strength was her height and ability to take a strong ball," Carstens said.

"In terms of being able to just throw long bombs and expect one of our other athletes in there to take it, we're not necessarily going to have that this time.

"Our approach into the attacking is going to be slightly different, but innovation is good and you need to have that every year."

The Cavs did add new pieces to their defence in the form of former Hawks goal defence Hannah Lenthall, as well as former Kingston keeper Bec Hyland.

"Last year, we really had a makeshift defense end - we'd lost our key defenders from our grand final win the year before," Roden said.

"I think this year we've really worked on our defensive structures and we've got the personnel who are experienced defenders to really take that back end to where it was in 2018."

Carstens said it was great to have the up-and-coming talents of Lenthall switch from brown and gold to black and green.

"She's got an immense amount of talent and is super fit - we're just easing her back into it after a few injuries," she said.

"She's such an impact player and very intense so we're looking forward to seeing what she can do in terms of our defensive style we're going to push this year."

Returning captain Shelby Miller mirrored Roden and Carsten's stance on defence.

"We've definitely got a much more defence-heavy team in comparision to last year where we were more a shooting-heavy team," she said.

"It's totally different but still really exciting with what we've got coming through."

As for grand final expectations, Miller was adamant her new-look team had the quality to make a return to the top.

"I think the team's going in with a really positive outlook," she said.

"We had a camp this year which was a huge part of our preseason and we formed some really strong relationships and we're really keen to get out there and show what we've been training for."