Cunningham and assistant coach Mick Howell have lured the majority of the 2018-19 squads, which bowed out in the preliminary final against Wanderers and lost the 2018 grand final to Hamilton, back to play in 2021 after the 2020 competition hiatus.

"I'm not here to make up numbers and just put a competitive team on the park, we're here to continue that success which has built up over the past five years," Cunningham said. "The last two years we've played we lost a grand final and fell short of one. There's only one way to improve on those and that's to win a comp."

Only 2019 Anderson Medal winner Travis Brooke, who has returned to New Zealand, will be missing from the squad which Cunningham is confident will include skipper Carl Manu and scrumhalf Max Stafford who had been due to join University and Wanderers respectively in 2020.

"We've spoken to Carl. Carl has a lot of great mates at the club. He has some work commitments and is expecting a new baby so there are a few things which need to be settled before he can commit, but we are hopeful," Cunningham said.

"I've spoken to Max and he looks like being back. The only bloke who is not playing is Trav and fingers crossed he misses his mates and the club and by Christmas time we'll organise to get him a flight out here."

About 75 players attended a recent information night and a further dozen players contacted the coaches to say they were interested but unable to attend.

"When you've got numbers like that the competition for spots between the grades increases dramatically and that's something that I'm going to focus on," Cunningham said.

"One of the first things as a coaching staff that I wanted to tick off was to personally contact everyone we've had on our books over the last couple of years and get them all back involved," Cunningham said.

"My first goal was to lock in the existing personnel we've had over the past few seasons, lock them in and then we can look at bringing new players in."

The Blacks return to the track on Thursday, December 3, for the first of three pre-Christmas training sessions. The sessions will be skills based and the pre-season proper kicks off on Tuesday, January 12.

The format of next season is still to be finalised and will be dictated to a large extent on whether the NHRU enters a team in the Shute Shield again.

"I'm hearing a few different things including that Colts may run as a Friday night competition and I'm also hearing that Premier Rugby will just be ones, twos and Colts," Cunningham said.

"We will definitely be running a third grade team and Colts.

"Jono O'Toole will be coaching Colts and the club is expecting between 30 and 40 Colts to be registered.

"Out of the crop of Colts coming into grade this year there's already half a dozen that we've earmarked as potential first or second grade quality players.

"You throw those guys into the mix of the senior guys we've already got and it comes down to that competition for spots again which is really good."