Ruapehu and Border contested the 2017 Premier final at Cooks Gardens. Watch two teams will have that honour in 2018?
The WRFU club rugby season has retained the same shape as 2017 but there will be some different travel schedules for the Premier sides when their nine team competition kicks off next Saturday.
After winning the 2017 Senior championship with an undefeated season, the Marton rugby club have opted not to return to Premier rugby, as had been initially planned, with several players leaving the club and moving to greener pastures with the Whanganui town clubs.
Therefore, every Premier round will have one team on the bye, however there will be no break or gap weekends as the top tier competition still aligns with the Senior grade, which will now be an official ten team competition.
Utiku Old Boys have committed to a Premier squad but will not have a Senior team underneath it, after the Utiku seniors withdrew from competition early in 2017.
As the two grades can be linked up, Senior will play two full rounds of matches, rather than splitting into a six-team championship group and 4-5 team consolation group after the first round, which will make the division very competitive in the race to make the Top 4.
The club semifinals will be on July 14 with finals day the following week.
Nonetheless, Premier teams will still be travelling to Marton Park again as WRFU development officer Paul Kenny confirmed that Ratana Pa will not be hosting matches this winter.
With new drainage at the Pa ground, which famously runs 'downhill' from north to south, it is currently not up to union playing standards.
Therefore, Ratana have transferred their games to Marton Park
"Council have given Ratana permission to use Ground No2 as their home base," said Kenny.
"Just by chance the draw ties in, except for one game, but we'll get around that."
There is a rugby league match scheduled for the park on No2 pitch on opening weekend, so Marton will kick off their Senior campaign against Border at 1pm, while Ratana will then follow them onto the No1 pitch to face Ruapehu at 2.30pm.
Ratana had a disastrous 2017 season where they went winless and were hammered 125-0 by Pirates in the worst defeat in 13 years of the Premier competition.
However, the battlers could well pull themselves up by their bootstraps with the news that former Steelform Wanganui captain and 52-game veteran Steelie Koro is taking over the coaching reins.
Koro, who will no doubt also play, worked wonders after the Marist team, helping bring them back to the semifinals in consecutive seasons, and his talisman presence is a boost for a club trying to rebuild around their young Maori players, who currently have the strongest registration of any Premier squad with 30 names in the WRFU database.
Marist is looking to rebuild their playmaker group as Koro's departure is coupled with young Wanganui Under 20 rep Mitchell Millar moving north to join the defending champions Ruapehu.
However, standout 2016 first-five Sam Monaghan steps away from the barber chair to return to active duty, while former Wanganui Development XV winger Simeli Konifiredi also makes his return and representative hooker Jack Yarrall is a transfer from Kaierau.
Marist have looked to strengthen their front row assets, including former Collegiate 1st XV prop Cameron Nelson coming back from Canterbury.
The coaches have also swapped roles as Jerome McCrea will take the lead, with Jason Hamlin acting as his assistant.
Kaierau, again coached by Denis Edwards, have picked up several transfers themselves like Carlwyn Riddles (Ngamatapouri), former Wanganui winger Clive Stowers (Pirates), and 2018 Wanganui Sevens rep John Kilisi (Marton).
Former Collegiate 1st XV player Sam Beard has also returned from Ireland, so with a squad filled with the younger Wanganui senior players, Kaierau will again try to springboard from winning the Premier consolation title to making the championship playoffs.
Of the other 2017 semifinalists, Pirates will again be coached by Phillip Morris and are likely to continue to have a strong Samoan youth presence – taking this Saturday to play a practice match in Bulls.
Runnersup Border have retained the core of their successful squad of the past two seasons, although they may initially be a little brittle in the backline.
And Ruapehu could see the quickest "un-retirement" turnaround in club rugby history as several players thought to have hung up or burned the boots after last year's stunning 28-26 injury time victory in the grand final may be gearing up for another five month campaign under Daisy Alabaster.
Ngamatapouri will be dangerous if they have the numbers, following up from winning seven games in their first season of Premier, while there is a changing of the guard over in Taihape, as influential coach Kerry Whale is stepping back, with his son Dane and team captain Tremaine Gilbert taking over the coaching reins.
In the opening weekend, Taihape will host Marist, Ratana take on Ruapehu in their new Marton home, Kaierau will make the long trek up the Waitotara Valley to meet Ngamatapouri, and Pirates will face Utiku at Spriggens Park.