Greater Norther Raiders women's season preview

We start with the T20 comp where we play 12 games and the final, then we have nine 50-over games and a final.

Ultimately you want to achieve silverware. We made the grand final last year but our focus is on our players improving their games.

Zoe Lowry has gone to university and Ellie Mathews (South Launceston) has gone back to club cricket.

We've just landed all-rounder Ruth Johnston who joined the Hurricanes this week. She's a powerful batter from Queensland who bowls off-spin.

In the early part of this year's competition there'll be a lot of state players involved. We've got our captain Sasha Maloney (Hurricanes and Tigers), Emma Manix-Geeves (Tigers), Belinda Vakarewa (Hurricanes and Tigers) and Corinne Hall (Sydney Thunder and Tigers). When they are available they will play a key role but at the moment only Sasha is fit.

Emma has had a stress fracture in the shin which she is slowly overcoming but is ruled out of the first few rounds of the season, as are Belinda and Corinne.

Our squad is quite similar to last year. We've got good strength and the exciting part is that the majority are aged 15 to 20 and over the first couple of seasons in the Premier League is when we've seen growth in those players. We just want to see that continue, that's our main focus, because if they continue to improve, we'll get some good results.

We'll also look to Caitlyn Webster (South Launceston) as a batter and vice-captain, Meg Radford (South Launceston) to lead the way with the bat and I won't be surprised to see improvement in all-rounder Ava Curtis (South Launceston).

Sophie Parkin (Riverside) led the bowling in the comp last year and I can see her having a breakout season with the bat on the back of strong club performances last season and limited opportunities with the Raiders.

We're keen to see Hannah Magor (Latrobe) continue to step up as well as left-arm orthodox spinner Charlotte Layton (Launceston) and medium pacer Alice McLauchlan (South Launceston). Caitlyn and Sophie will lead the side when Sasha has state commitments and Sascha Lowry (Latrobe) will take the gloves in Emma's absence.

We'll play four T20s at Windsor Park and two at UTAS. We'll play one-dayers at UTAS, Latrobe, Westbury and the NTCA Ground.

Three days at UTAS Stadium is our most ever and we're excited for our players to play on the premier ground in the state.

Players are travelling all the time and we've got seven trips to Hobart for the season. But we embrace that and think that brings us closer together and we use that to our advantage.

Across pre-season we've been working on individual skillsets and I think we'll see the benefit of that early doors and across the season.

That's part of our program and as our side is so young that's really exciting because it means plenty of growth.

The reigning T20 champs (New Town) is a tough start because they've recruited quite well and will have a strong side but we try and focus on what we do well as a team.

Sunday, 10.30am v New Town, 2pm v New Town, Windsor Park (Riverside), both T20s