Just as Osborne had been a weapon in the front row for both Bathurst Panthers and St Pat's during his time in Group 10, the former NSW Residents representative was a key man for the Rhinos.

But Osborne will play his league in the Hunter region next season which means Manildra Rhinos' captain-coach Luke Petrie knows his side will need to do some heavy lifting to make up for his departure.

"Simon Osborne leaves a massive void in the forward pack so we're going to have to work on a few things to go forward without having as much natural size," he said.

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Still, Petrie is confident his men have what it takes to not only fill the void, but to go one better than they did in the 2018-19 Woodbridge Cup competition.

The Rhinos sustained a pair of grand final losses to Trundle and even though Petrie wasn't part of those results, is taking it upon himself to reverse those results in 2021.

"In my head we really want to be pushing every year for that grand final.... that's the goal," Petrie said.

"We made two in-a-row and came up short both times so the standard out here now is to get into the grand final.

While Osborne is departing, Petrie expects the majority of the squad from 2019 to return, as well as a few key targets he's unwilling to name at this stage.

"We want to get back all of the local players and hopefully we can add a few guys after Christmas," he said.

One of the ways Petrie hopes to bounce back from the loss of Osborne is to slightly tweak the way in which his ball runners play their footy and says there's need to be an emphasis on fundamentals such as "pushing up in pairs".

"I want to be known as a team that turns up every week," he said.

"We want teams to know they're going to have a tough game every time they play us." "We want to be consistent and work hard at training and if we do that with the players we've got, I'm sure we can be thereabouts at the end of the season."

The red and whites have already knocked off six weeks of pre-season training as they're targeting the nines competition in March as their first official hit out.

Petrie expects to slot into the halves this season but knows anything could change depending on which new players end up linking with the club.

The shape of the Woodbridge Cup is expected to be fairly similar to what it has been in previous years as contenders Cargo are set to re-join the ranks after a season in the Mid West League.