After signing striker Joel Wood, hugely talented young defender Tom Davies from Hamilton and re-signing the vast majority of his squad Bolch believes finals and a final 32 spot in the FFA Cup are reasonable expectations.

The Magpies will also welcome back experience duo Ryan Broadley and Blake Thompson, who missed last year travelling overseas, and young gun James Thompson from the US.

The only question mark going into the new year is Matt Comerford’s recover from a knee injury.

“We’ve kept most of the squad together from last year. Joel Wood will do a lot up front for us and Tommy Davies is a quality player. He has played nearly 100 games at Olympic and has just turned 21,” Bolch said.

“They will add a lot of depth to the squad we assembled last year, so I’m looking forward to it.

“Cummos still 50/50 about his knee, they think it may need an operation now after all this time. That’s a wait and see at the moment otherwise it’s all systems go.

“Ryan and BT were travelling last year and they come back into calculations. Matty Thompson and the Swan boys are over their niggles and will hit the ground running.

“The only one we’ve lost out of the first grade squad is Justin Justin Micallef  and he only came in at the back end of the year.”

Bolch said with the additions to the squad one of the priorities would be making the final 32 of the FFA Cup.

“We’ve got a few goals this year that we want to aim for and going further in the FFA Cup is an important one,” he said

“Last year was my first year and the priority was making the finals and we achieved that.

“We can set the goals a bit higher this year as competition for spots is really good at the moment and I’m hoping that will push us on from last year.”

Bolch said one of the most pleasing aspects of the off-season was that the club was able to re-sign the vast majority of its first grade and under-20 squad from last year.

The only loss from the starting under-20 minor premiership team is Josh Williams who has joined Adamstown.

“We kept all the other boys like the Duggan brothers,  Lachlan Yates, Lachlan Webb, Louis Townsend and Luke Jennings

“We haven’t had much turnover at all which is a really good sign as the past couple of years it had been a club that had a really big turnover of players.”

Maitland’s first trial match is on February 2.