After winning the competition in 2012, the Eagles have missed the finals for the past two seasons but have blooded a number of promising young players over that period.

“It takes a while to turn a club around, especially when you lose a lot of experience like we did,” Sainsbury said.

“There’s some promising signs though, the players we have here are true Park players, they’re here because they want to be and a lot of them are local juniors who have stuck around and have plenty of promise.”

While the Eagles would have liked to be playing finals football over the last two years, Sainsbury believes the recent hard times might have had a silver lining.

“A lot of the younger blokes have been playing first grade since they we’re 18, they’ve had a few years of being knocked around a bit.

“I think this year they’ll have toughened up a bit and show that they’re used to it a bit more and show what they’re really capable of.”

The Eagles won’t be completely without experience though, with a couple of club stalwarts set to pull the boots on again.

“The Gray brothers will be there and we’re hopeful that Sean Jenkins will be as well.

“There’s a couple of blokes like Jack Middleton who didn’t play a lot last year due to injury who will be back, so we should have a good mix of youth and experience.”

With wins over Warilla and Gerringong last year, the Eagles showed that any side in the competition can be dangerous and Sainsbury believes that will be the same again this year.

“Nowra-Bomaderry look like they’ll be good again and Shellharbour and Warilla are always strong, but on their day any side in this competition can beat anybody and we’re confident we can knock a few sides off.”