Mt Maunganui go into today's season-opening Baywide game with a giant bullseye on their backs - and captain Daniel Hill wouldn't have it any other way.
Platinum Pacific Reclad Mount are the team the other eight contenders in the premiership want to knock over after a trophy-laden 2010-11 season.
Mount last year won three pieces of Bay of Plenty Premier silverware - the Bay of Plenty and Williams Cups and the Hart Family trophy which is given to the Baywide champion of champions. Mount also won the Western Bay Baker Cup and progressed to the national club finals in Auckland as Northern Districts' top club side.
Hill said all that would make them targets again this season.
"It's the way it should be when you had the sort of summer we did, but our job this year is to replicate what we achieved," he said.
"We're keeping it simple and not looking to change a whole lot because we had a winning formula that worked. It's also a testament to the depth in the Mount club right now that we have guys away on Bay of Plenty duty other can step up and deliver."
Mount have lost prolific runscorer Sheldon Kearns, who has been transferred to Palmerston North to work, but have picked up Bay of Plenty wicketkeeper-batsman Tim Clarke from Te Puke, middle order batsman Russell Williams (Te Puke) and have seam bowler Andrew Hoogstraten back after a couple of seasons in Holland.
They warmed up for the Baywide with a couple of tidy outings last weekend against Takapuna.
"Sheldon is a loss but Tim and Russ bring something to the batting and Hoogy, who almost made the Holland team for the World Cup, will boost our bowling," Hill said.
The Bay of Plenty Cup 110-over competition opens the season - the first few weeks on artificial wickets - and is played until Christmas, with bonus points on offer this year.
The Willims Cup one-day championship is scheduled post-Christmas before a new Twenty20 format instigated by the clubs is played.
Element IMF Cadets have been bolstered by an influx of new recruits from Tauranga Boys College, although Rotorua's demise as a Bay of Plenty powerhouse has been heightened with the demise of Eastern Pirates, with iTCo Central quick to cherry-pick some of their better players, with former Bay rep Kane Spiers, along with Jarrod Christoffersen and Julian Danby, giving Central additional firepower.
Today's games:
Element IMF Cadets v Te Puke (Fergusson 4), Rotorua Boys High School v Platinum Pacific Reclad Mount Maunganui (Boord1), Bay of Plenty Indians v East Bay United (Boord 2), Tauranga Boys College v iTCo Central (Nicholson field), Eves Realty Greerton bye.