Winning only three games, they spent most of their season hovering around the bottom few rungs of the ladder, but as with all situations, there is a silver lining.
The dearth of experienced players allowed the Eagles to invest heavily in their youth, retaining a large number of their junior side that were blooded in the senior competition across the course of the year.
Senior coach Farran Priest, who will be making his playing comeback from an ACL injury in round one, is confident heading into the new season that the young squad will be better for the experience they gained last year.
"We had a really, really, young side, and we decided on the path of obviously, well I don't want to say rebuilding, but basically that's what it was,” he said.
“We put a lot of time and made sure that we re-signed our juniors that we could, and definitely kept the top crop of them.”
With a solid summer under the belts, and some new personnel around the club, Priest said the club was bursting with excitement to hit the field this Saturday against Tongala.
“We've had a pretty big pre-season which is good, we've sort of got some people involved, and put a lot of time and resources into the young squad that we've got, so yeah, I think everyone is really looking forward to round one,” he said.
“We also had two really good hit-outs with our praccy matches, and yeah, it's definitely built enough excitement throughout the group.”
In line with the commitment to youth that the club has adopted, Priest said there was an emerging group of extremely talented youngsters that were primed to put their stamp on the side in round one.
“There's probably three or four in there that have had a really big pre-season and worked really hard,” he said.
“Mitchy Boyd, our centre half-back, he's definitely put his hand up to hold down that spot. I think he only turned 18 in the second last round of the year last year. He's still a real young kid that's learnt a heap.
“Kynan Sharpe, he's going to take a massive step this year, but then we've got Max Childs, Ryan Stobaus, Darcy Ramage. These kids have put in a monster pre-season and done everything that we've asked of them."
The most exciting part of the young group, according to Priest, is the competition that has been created for spots, which has drawn the best out of everyone.
“The good thing that we've created too is a really good competition amongst the young crew of trying to get the best out of each other, and that’s been probably the most exciting part of it all, is that they are trying to get the best out of each other.”
Echuca United Eagles will face last year’s semi-finalists Tongala this Saturday at Tongala Recreation Reserve, before taking on flag fancies Moama in round two, where they will be vying for the Three Jacks Trophy.
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