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Macgowan told The Courier it was a no-brainer to return to the Grasshoppers for another year.

"We do feel like there's unfinished business," he said.

"We made so much progress in 2021 and unfortunately we didn't get to play in the finals."

For Moloney, he was excited to return for another season.

"It's a great country club, great people and it was a pretty easy decision especially with the year we had, we reckon we're building and getting stronger, so it's pretty exciting next year," he said.

The Grasshoppers were one of the most improved sides in the competition this season, rising from six wins and 11th place on the ladder in 2019 to a 9-3 record and third spot.

The inclusions of Cam Richardson and Matthew Aikman (North Ballarat), Sam Carr and Laityn Withers (Redan), Jack Buttler (East Ballarat) and Joshua Morgan and Jordan Gercovich (Sebastopol) among others, helped lift the Grasshoppers into premiership contention.

"We feel like we've now got a really good group of core players there that will set us up for success," Macgowan said.

"The core's there, we recruited and the players we had also developed, made great progress, so you put those two together and that got us a team that finished in the top four.

"We just think that there is some targeted, specific positions we need to recruit. Like every team, we'd like another couple of key position players."

Moloney admitted that the expectations on next season have risen after an impressive 2021 campaign.

"When we got there the club's bottom-third, in our first year it was mid-third and this year we were hoping to sneak into the top-third of teams, the top six or eight somewhere," he said.

"We managed to do that, so why wouldn't we want to keep getting better, there's a real attitude around that club at the moment of striving to be better and striving to improve."

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