I'll be very surprised if anyone replaces HSOB in the East Prems, the next biggest teams in the Gisborne area would be Wainui, Shockers, and Wairoa, but none of them have made any attempts at doing anything other than local league. In Hawkes Bay the bigger teams that aren't in Prems already are Eskview and Hastings Hibernian who both haven't played Prems since like 2018. Seems like it will just be back to a 9 team tournament (which it was for the second half of the season anyway). Still question marks around Maycenvale who are losing a lot of players, and teams like Napier Marist and Western Rangers who struggled last year and are also facing exodus' of players.
I'll be very surprised if anyone replaces HSOB in the East Prems, the next biggest teams in the Gisborne area would be Wainui, Shockers, and Wairoa, but none of them have made any attempts at doing anything other than local league. In Hawkes Bay the bigger teams that aren't in Prems already are Eskview and Hastings Hibernian who both haven't played Prems since like 2018. Seems like it will just be back to a 9 team tournament (which is was for the second half of the season anyway). Still question marks around Maycenvale who are losing a lot of players, and teams like Napier Marist and Western Rangers who struggled last year and are also facing exodus' of players.