Although it finished last season second-last on the ladder, Brown Hill remained competitive throughout.

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The Bulls hope that with more consistency, wins will come.

"Last (season) we lost three games by one wicket. Win those games and your season looks completely different," former captain Tom Bourke-Finn told The Courier.

"For us, we want to challenge, be really consistent against all sides and look to close the gap between our worst and our best cricket, because we know that we can well-and-truly mix it with the best sides.

"It's just a matter of being really consistent, avoid dropping off in the field and avoid clumps of wickets with the bat."

Pre-season training numbers have been the best they have been in a couple of years for Brown Hill, with Dean Romeril crossing from Golden Point to assist in a coaching role.

"I think we've had a solid pre-season. For me individually I've been in Melbourne so this is the first week for me joining the group," Bourke-Finn said.

"Very different to previous years in terms of really good numbers on the track, training with a good intensity and the fact that we've had Dean Romeril helping out with the coaching coming across from Golden Point has added to that.

"We had an intra-club last Sunday, obviously trained again (with) good numbers on the public holiday (Tuesday), so just looking forward to getting started."

The Bulls struggled with the bat last season, their 2367 runs scored ranked eighth-best in the competition.

Improving on this area of their game and continuing to bowl strongly has been their pre-season objective.

"Our bowling's always been pretty consistent the last few seasons, but our batting can be prone to collapses," Bourke-Finn said.

"We've just been working on trying to avoid (losing) clumps of wickets and making sure that we bat our 50 overs which is critical in the one-day game.

"Just looking to form partnerships, particularly at the top of the order."

The Bulls head into the season without the services of Viraj Pushpakumara following his cross to Napoleons-Sebastopol.

Nathan Porter has joined Romeril in coming across from Golden Point.

Abdul Mohammed, who played a few games last season for the Bulls, will be more consistently available too.

The Bulls start their season against reigning premiers Darley at Western Oval.

9^th (3 wins, 1 tie, 13 losses)

2367 runs scored (8th)

6 half-centuries (8th=), 0 centuries (5th=)

2919 runs conceded (4th)

126 wickets (6th)

26.55 average runs per wicket (5th)

4.99 average economy rate (9th)

126 maidens (6th)

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