Central West A grade club-by-club preview

The Central West Rugby League spans one of the largest geographical footprints in Queensland, with town abuzz for the start of the five team A grade men's competition this weekend.

Here's how things are looking for defending premiers Blackall, Longreach-Ilfracombe, Barcaldine, Winton-Diamantina and Alpha in 2024.

Blackall Magpies

Coaches: Jeremy Barron and Cody Trost

Captain: Alex Choyce - heart of the team

2023 finish: Premiers

Signings/retains: Alex Choyce, Carl Hauff, Dallas Dawson, Jed O'Neill, Ben Hayman, Bhodi Burki

Player losses: Gavin Wemyss

How will your team improve in 2024?

Win the grand final by more than 12 points.

What can fans expect from your playing style?

Tough and strong. Safe defence as always. We won't be giving anything up.

Who is the team to beat and why?

Winton seems to be looking good, they did all right in the 9s. It's a young side and they've been together a couple of years now, so they might be a little dark horse. Longreach are strong every year, they've got some pretty good players and they're always pretty tough.

Longreach-Ilfracombe Tigers

Coach: Gavin Groves and Kien Dickson

Captains: Adam Hughes and Gary Cutting

2023 finish: Runners-up

Signings/retains: Ethan Lunn, Chas Ballin

Player losses: Sam Munns, Alec Tanks, Broden Beezley

How will your team improve in 2024?

We've got a whole new side. For us it's more about maybe not having the lofty goals of years past and blooding the younger guys.

What can fans expect from your game style?

Hopefully we still play an exciting brand of football where we score a lot of points.

Who is the team to beat and why?

Winton. Impressed to season how they finished the season with a lot of their young guys who played really well at our 9s comp and have a good team behind them. But we also know Barcaldine have got some good young kids coming from 17s up to A grade who have a fair bit of ability.

Barcaldine Sandgoannas

Coach: Ricky Moxham

Captain: TBA

2023 finish: 3rd

Signings/retains: Declan Gray, Austyne Stewart, Mark Wren

Player losses: N/A

How will your team improve in 2024?

There's a lot more mateship there this year, so a lot more team play is being implemented and in the preseason we've identified we need to get right back into our fitness.

What can fans expect from your game style?

Hopefully a smoother game style. There a few changes to positions to get used to.

Who is the team to beat and why?

Last year's premiers, Blackall.

Winton Diamantina Devils

Coach: Barry Vincent

Captain: Kelland Elliott

2023 finish: 5th

Signings/retains: Kelland Elliott, Darcy Clark

Player losses: Robert Mann (work), Jared Megaw

How will your team improve in 2024?

We should have a red-hot crack. We should have a good young side pretty keen to shake some trees.

What can fans expect from your game style?

Ad-lib, plenty of throwing the ball around, trying anything and playing until the final seconds.

Who is the team to beat and why?

Without knowing much about who's playing for the other teams, Longreach is a pretty hard team to get on top of and they've always got quick, smart young players and some tough, old heads leading them around the park.

Alpha Brumbies

2023 finish: 4th

Not provided