The Mustards, who went down to Parkes in the preliminary final back in August, will be hopeful that they can go a game extra and make next year’s decider.

First up in the new campaign for CSU will be Blayney, with the game to be played at University Oval on April 6. 

This will be followed up by an away trip to Mudgee a week later, before consecutive home matches against Dubbo Rhinos and defending champions Narromine on April 27 and May 4 respectively.

President Josh Buttenshaw said the club is hoping to be competitive once again in 2019.

“We had a pretty good season this year and we’re excited about the new season,” he said.

“We’ve got a few players that will still be round but we’ve lost a few other guys, but we’ll still be competitive.”

Buttenshaw said he expects Narromine to be the team to beat again, but expects every team to be competitive.

“Narromine are always going to be strong, especially going undefeated last year,” he said.

“But we expect all teams to be competitive.”

CSU will head into 2019 without Luke Kelly, the former coach taking up a job opportunity outside of Bathurst. 

The vacant coach role has yet to be finalised however, but the new boss will have to work on building on a side of new university recruits, as well as a returning crop. 

The New Holland Cup will be made up of the same six teams from 2018 – Blayney, CSU, Dubbo Rhinos, Mudgee, Narromine and Parkes. 

The competition will be played over 15 rounds, the opening one played on April 6 and the last one on July 27, before play-offs commence.

No games will be played on the weekend falling on April 20 and June 8. 

It is expected that 2019’s play-offs format will use the Page-McIntyre system, where the team ranked first plays the team ranked second in match A and the team ranked third plays the team ranked fourth in match B.

The loser of match one will play the winner of match two in the preliminary final, with the winner of the preliminary final meeting the winner of match A in the grand final.