But not only that, the club is keen for its role in the inaugural New Holland Agriculture Cup, which promises to deliver a competitive brand of rugby, something that didn’t always feature in last year’s top tier.

Joining the Wombats will be ex-Blowes Clothing Cup sides Parkes, Dubbo Rhinos, and CSU Bathurst.

For promoted GrainCorp Cup Southern Division champion Blayney it’s a chance to test and potentially prove itself in the higher grade and continue building as a club while for 2017 Northern Division premiers Narromine, promotion is an opportunity to rekindle some rivalries and build on last year’s success.

The competition brings an element of mystery to the table in 2018 as none of the captains have much of an idea as to what’s going to happen.

All six representatives were also unanimous in one point they made too, Central West Rugby Union’s decision to introduce the second tier is a positive move.

All the clubs have had players flood to pre-season training and confirmed they’ll all field the necessary first and second XVs in Saturday’s first round, a far cry from 2017 for some clubs which, at times, struggled to field two sides, let alone four.

One of the benefits of the new competition is that all six clubs are already eyeing a finals appearance at the very least as a long-term goal, something several had rarely done in their previous competitions.

“Finals are definitely in our grasp,” Mudgee skipper Tom Dunstan said.

“We want to do the best we can and we’ve got a lot of old heads around the club that guys look up to, who have been great in the pre-season.”

Mudgee Wombats coach Greg Horton is wary of his team’s meeting with Narromine not just because a lot of his players wouldn’t have faced the gorillas before, but because they’re ‘a very hard side to go up against’. “We won’t be taking them lightly.”

Narromine travel to Jubilee Oval – the Burrow – to face the Wombats on Saturday. Second grade is scheduled to kick-off at 1.50pm, with first grade from 3.15pm.