The Wanderers kicked off their new campaign with a 3-1 pre-season trial win over Albury United in Albury on Sunday.

It was not as convincing as the corresponding victory this time last year but coach Dave Leonard was pleased to see his player's recognise the performance was far from perfect.

"It was a good first hit-out. Room for huge improvement, the guys were well and truly aware of that," Leonard said.

"We were a little bit disappointed in ourselves, we thought we could have played a bit better than what we did. It was hot and first run in the legs, it was their first hit out too, but you can't expect too much.

"Again, they've got high expectations so I was pleased to see them a little bit disappointed in their efforts. We only played really well in patches and a big thing for us is consistency.

"As I said to the boys, it's great that you guys have taken it personally, it's fantastic, it just shows were you're at mentally and where you want to be at. I've also said many a time that you can not play at your best and come away with a loss but to not play your best and come up with a win against a pretty quality team, you've got to take that as a positive."

Jake Ploenges suggested he could be in for a big year, scoring twice in the win. Samson Lucas also found the back of the net.

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Morris Kadzola impressed, as did Ben Mavor and Jacob Ochieng.

Another highlight was the 6-0 win to the Wanderers 23s, highlighting the depth in the squad.

"We expect big things off 23s this year because they were a bit off pace last year for the first time in a while," Leonard said.

The Wanderers will hold their next pre-season trial against Hanwood in Griffith on Saturday. Again, both first grade and 23s will play.

Leonard will continue to experiment to work out the best line-up for the start of the CPL season next month.

"We shuffled a few guys around a little bit, which doesn't help the dynamics when you're out there playing, moving people around, it doesn't allow you to settle in but definitely saw some glimpses of what we want and how we want to play position wise," Leonard said.

"We're really looking for that quality 10 because (Luke Stevens) was our 10 last year and has been for a number of years now so we're just trying to find the right mold for that position. There's a couple of guys who could play that but it's just fine tuning the right person.

"With a couple more trials in hand we'll probably trial a couple of other guys there but the guys were really inconsistent but super at the same time."

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