WESTS coach Pete McLeod knows everyone will be coming for what is club's got this season but, for a career Devils man, it's nothing new.
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After several years serving as assistant to former coaches Jason Ryles and Brett Kimmorley, McLeod made good on his apprenticeship last season, steering the Devils to their first title since 2011.
The previous crown was the last in a threepeat of titles under now Dragons coach Paul McGregor, and was also the last time any side in the Illawarra has managed consecutive premierships.
It says plenty about how difficult the task will be at Parrish Park this year, but McLeod says his club don't feel any more under siege than any other season.
"I think everyone's always chasing Wests," McLeod said.
"When you're defending premiers everyone else is chasing you but I think we'll have a group as good as anyone's. It's just about putting it together on the field.
"It's going to be a new-look squad. In round one we'll have eight or nine from our premiership team, we'll have a few local juniors back and a few young blokes given opportunities from 18s and reserve grade.
"With the blokes we lost in the preseason we tried to replace them as much as we could with young guys in the club. We've had a pretty successful 18s the last couple of years and good results in the lower grades last year.
"There's a lot of young blokes there and some will make their debut in our first game and we'll see how they go."
The losses over the preseason are not insignificant, with Glenn Stewart retiring and key spine men Zac Greene and Josh Daley moving on.
The return of local junior Rhys Hanbury from the Super League will go some way to filling the void alongside returning halfback Justin Rodrigues and livewire fullback Tony Pellow.
Old Devils Marty Cramp and Daniel Zohar will return to the fold to bolster the forward pack that's also lost enforcer Keiran Rankmore as well as Stewart.
"The blokes we've lost are great players and did really well for us last year but they've moved on and we've got to move on to," McLeod said.
"J-Rod was the one who led us around the park last year, and for the last couple of years. He was the voice of it and he's still there.
"Rhys Hanbury's got a couple of hundred games of Super League up his sleeve and he's also a local junior who's had success in the jumper before.
"Tony did a good job for us at the back [last year] and at hooker we've got two or three blokes who'll probably fight it out all year so I think we're in good position there."
It will be a belated start to their defence after being dealt an opening round bye and McLeod says his new squad is desperate for a taste of regular season footy.
"It's been a long preseason, it's going to be May by the time we play our first game," McLeod said.
"A lot of them have been back since December. We played the preseason cup as a preseason cup, I used about 30 blokes which I did last year as well.
"Preseason form's been OK, that's just with the number of blokes I've used. They've trained really well, they'll be ready, whether our combinations are up to it, we'll see how we go."