After not playing at all in 2022, the Drovers made the big step up to submit a first grade team for the first time since 1999.

Deniliquin finished fifth, missing out on a finals berth by seven points.

Coach Joe Gogarty believes they could have enough players to fill both sides however the support needed to sustain the effort is a bigger concern.

"We were potentially looking at two grades a few months ago but there more I look into it I don't think we are going to have the committee and the people on the ground to help," Gogarty said.

"That's going to be our biggest problem as we seem to be struggling for volunteers, and a lot of clubs are nowadays.

"You can have the players but you need the volunteers and everyone else to go with it."

Gogarty expects to have a better indication when the club comes together for their first training run of the year on Saturday.

Deniliquin relied on an influx of Pacific Islanders in the region to keep rugby union going.

It included lengthy round trips into Victoria just to pick everyone up for games.

Doubling their commitment to Southern Inland would mean a lot more resources would be needed.

"It would be lovely to have two grades but you would have to double up on everything and it costs to do that," Gogarty said.

"With all the travel we do, we travel three times the amount of kilometres of most of the clubs, if not more.

"We did nearly 2500ks last season and the costs would certainly blow out if you can't confirm more sponsorship."

Deniliquin started out strong and looked like a finals berth was in sight before struggling for player numbers in the back end of the season.

However Gogarty was far from disappointed with their efforts and is hoping changing their approach this time around will bring dividends later in the season this time around.

"We had a lot of COVID and sickness through the group as a lot of them work together and live together," he said.

"There might be five or six of them who live in a house and another five or six in another so we had two or three weeks there where we had three suspensions and then some pretty bad illnesses and it left us a little bit short on the ground.

"That game against Aggies when we travelled with 15 and there were three red cards in the game so we went down to 13 and then got an injury, so we went down to 12, was not one to remember but we started quite early trying to develop a team.

"We really did a lot of pre-season work just to get the team together and I think by the time June and July came around we were starting to pick up injuries and that's when you have to be strong.

"That hurt us a bit but at the end of the day finishing fifth in the comp, and we drew two games we definitely should have won and lost one by a point to Griffith when we should have been a lot better.

"That would have had us in the top four and that's what you've got to reflect on.

"For a team that never trained together during the season you only have to start getting them together, getting into a routine, getting some training processes into place and they could be a lot better group."

Gogarty also revealed there has been some interest from Victorian clubs, in both rugby union and rugby league, in some of their better players.

Others have returned home but he expects to see plenty of new faces as well.

Southern Inland are yet to finalise their season structure with Deniliquin just one club unsure of their playing strength for 2024.