The club has retained the majority of last year's first grade team including last year's star recruit Josh Trappel who scored 221 in last year's grand final win against Kurri Weston.

Josh and skipper and brother Matt's 300-plus run partnership swamped the Warriors in the final and just the two brothers returning this season was enough to make City premiership favourites again.

They have further boosted their resources with the addition of a trio talented players including former Eastern Suburbs skipper Andrew Vickery.

The major losses from the City line-up are spinning all-rounder Michael Heinrich and fast bowler Ben Davies.

However, City skipper Matt Trappel said one the new recruits Todd Francis, from Armidale, had been earmarked to fill the gap in the line-up left by Heinrich and there was plenty of depth in the young fast bowling ranks with Jordan Murphy and Cam Wynn in line to replace Davies.

"Todd Francis is a middle-order bat who bowls spin. He is probably more a bowling all-rounder and hopefully will replace Heiney in the line-up," Trappel said.

"The other guy we've recruited is Wayne Dunlop, who was the leading run scorer in the Dubbo competition last year.

"Andrew had a year off but wanted to have a year playing with me and Josh, so he is coming over from Easts to play with us.

"We've been good mates for a long time. Andrew played for City before he went to Easts. He played for Easts as a junior and came over to City and played with me and Josh and when we went to Newcastle he went back to Easts."

Trappel said there was plenty of motivation to claim the first back-to-back first grade premierships in the club's history.

"It hasn't been done too often and it's never been done at City, so it's something that we would love to achieve.

"The major goal at the start is to make the finals and go on from there though.

Trappel said competition for places in the first grade team would be stiff this season.

"It's a good problem to have but I'll definitely have some headaches at selection. We'll have plenty of options," he said.

"It should bring out everyone's best, but the reality is that there could be some quality players missing out in first grade at times."

Trappel said anticipation was building among the team ahead of next Saturday's opening day of the 2019-20 season.

"Everyone is keen, we've had a good pre-season," he said.

"We'll be keen to make a good start as we've got a big match-up first against Norths. That will be our focus. It's an important game first game of the year."

Trappel said he expected another close season with Western Suburbs to be the major improver with the return of Aaron Mahony to their batting line-up.

"It's going to be tight for fourth and fifth, but I think the top four will be us, Norths, Thornton and Wests. If anyone drops of I think it will be Kurri Weston and that's just because they've lost a few players from last year."