The side then fell short against the highest eligible team from Capital Premiership, Wainuiomata AFC, in a two-legged fixture, which squandered the chance of promotion to Central League 2.
Head coach and director of football Aaron Folan is kicking off his second season with the club.
Folan said his side were confident of having another impressive campaign and going one step further.
“There has been a real high level at training; the boys have been working really hard and we feel confident knowing we have done some good work,” Folan said.
“We have added some good new faces in and we retained a lot of our key players from last year so the squad is healthy, and we have got some good young prospects coming up.
“We are looking forward to getting into it.”
The side have won four of their five pre-season games heading into the campaign, most recently beating Takaro AFC 5-1.
Folan said the disappointment of the final game last year would be used as motivation this season.
“There’s definitely a positive outlook that we have got on it; we had a good season and we fell short in the last game,” he said.
“We are looking forward, not backwards.”
Minimising workload is an area Folan wants to work on to keep his players fit.
“Last year we tried to get so much done in not a lot of time, but now there is a solid foundation for the boys to build on and now we are just adding improvements,” he said.
“It has been adding layers instead of starting from scratch. I think we’ve made good progress but we are not the finished article yet.”
Team captain Jake Simcox echoed Folan’s words about falling short last season.
“It is something that will stick and it will definitely be used as motivation,” Simcox said.
“We have got the experience of being in a final like that now so we know that if we get there again this year, we’ll know how to deal with the adversity.
“We are pretty optimistic about having another good season and we look to take out the league, first and foremost.”
New head coach for Whanganui City, Steve Meredith, said the club was gearing up for a “rebuild” season after getting a taste of high-level football.
“Last year was a hard year; a lot of players were pretty young and inexperienced but this year I’m expecting them, now that they are all a year older, to do a hell of a lot better,” Meredith said.
“I’ve got a squad where 80-90% of them are still under 20 but we have got some good young fellas there.
“I think we’ll be pretty competitive and play a reasonable brand of football.”
City aim for a strong performance that will return them to the Western Premiership next year, after being demoted last season.
“In saying that, it’s given us a good chance to rebuild the club up from the youth. We have lost quite a few of last year’s players but we have got pretty good squad depth,” Meredith said.
Athletic have brought in five overseas imports to help the team after losing all but one of the imports who came in last year and several other key players.
The international players are US attackers Ethan Russ and Aaron Russ, Dutch striker Mike Dijkgraaf, Czech teenage midfielder Ajdin Naprelac and Canadian-Filipino fullback Aristotle Cruz.
Folan said the club had brought in some “real firepower” and hoped they could instil hard work and professionalism in the younger Athletic players.
Twins Ethan and Aaron Russ, 29, had been showing up to trainings 45 minutes early to better themselves, which had impressed the rest of the team, Folan said.
Opportunities had been given to under-19 players in pre-season outings and the side now had a “nice balance of youth and experience”, he said.
“We think that we have improved technically and in explosiveness, along with the hard-working, professionalism side of things.”
Dijkgraaf said he wanted to play for Athletic because of the challenge.
“I think the project is really inspiring and Aaron’s philosophy about how he wants Whanganui Athletic to play made me want to come,” Dijkgraaf said.
“Also, playing in New Zealand; that is something you don’t hear every day in Europe.”
The 28-year-old has played football in the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy.
Dijkgraaf said international players brought a different level of experience to clubs such as Whanganui Athletic.
“It is a really young team; the things I learned while playing abroad were things I’ve kept with me my whole career,” he said.
“In every country, you learn something new, like tactics that you use in your own game. When you play internationally, you learn a bit more than when you stay in the same place.”
Whanganui Athletic’s first home game at Wembley Park is against Moturoa AFC on April 4.
Whanganui City’s opening game at Wembley Park is on April 11 against Whanganui Athletic Reserves.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
