Tongala managed just three wins and finished eighth last campaign, just ahead of wooden-spooner Nondies-Cohuna.
As such, Tongala will look to complete a massive turnaround and play finals this season, bouncing-back from a season overshadowed by the deaths of young Tongala natives Luke and Benny Smith.
However, the side will be without its stalwart captain Alex Williams for the entire 2025-26 season, who tore his ACL at the end of the 2025 football season for Tongala.
Even though Williams won’t be leading the A-grade outfit on the field, he will still be involved with the club throughout the season.
He believes it will be an interesting year for the competition and hopes Tonny can be competitive in the new format, particularly with its younger players getting more chances to develop in the top flight.
“I'm tipping the group this year to be pretty similar to last year, obviously minus myself. So we’ll probably be aiming to be as competitive as possible,” Williams said.
“It’ll be interesting to see how one-day affects the way that other teams and our guys go about it.
“No new players that I know of at this stage, we'll most likely be looking to some of our young guys who will get their chance to step up.
“But, hopefully, we can be thereabouts, and I’m hoping that the new one-day structure will close things up a bit in the competition.
“We just had a bit of a hard run last year. Losing the two Smith boys (Luke and Benny) hurt our club quite a bit.
“We’ll be looking to bounce back and keep them in mind and keep a positive attitude throughout the summer.”
Tonny has a rough opening draw of the new season, facing formidable 2024-25 runners-up Rochester at Windridge Oval, with the first ball scheduled for 11am on Saturday.
The side will have a chance to get a win under its belt early, coming up against last season’s wooden-spooners Nondies-Cohuna in round two.
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