The Roos announced their coaches across all four grades yesterday, with McDonald the sole coach of last year's Blowes Clothing Cup runners-up.

Club stalwarts Len Bartley and John Josephs will assist McDonald in their roles as team managers.

Speaking yesterday, McDonald said he is looking forward to the challenge of having the club replicate their efforts from 2012, where they fell to Orange City in an entertaining grand final.

"We probably over-achieved a bit last year by making the grand final but that becomes the new benchmark for us," McDonald said.

"It will be a bit different for us all not having Abram around but he always said it was only going to be a two-year thing for him.

"We still have the core of the group we had last year which is good because we had a good mix of talented kids and some older players in the squad and combined with some new faces to town who have contacted us we are hoping to have a strong squad again."

Prop forward Junior Manase has moved to Melbourne, leaving a hole to fill in the Roos scrum but McDonald is keen to see what he has to work with when the team starts training at the end of this month.

He already has a head start with the coaching structure throughout the club remaining pretty much the same as last season.

Andrew Lavelle, Scott Vaughan and Lachlan Simpson will mentor the second graders while third grade will be led by Brian Furner and Mal Donald.

Matt Adams and Ben O'Malley will take the reins with the colts.

"Things worked pretty well with those guys last year when we needed players to step up from the lower grades and fill gaps and our depth was one of the reasons we went so well across all the grades," McDonald said.

"Having those guys in those jobs I know I can easily chat with them and say 'we need this guy' or 'we need that guy' and they will have them available and well-prepared to step up."