The Blues battled problems with turnovers through the middle of the ground in 2021 and want to improve disposal efficiency as they push for a return to Hampden league finals.

Second-year coach Ben Parkinson told The Standard ball movement had been a major focus through pre-season.

"We don't want to give the footy back as much as we did," he said.

"We think our forward line with Sam and Jason - obviously their names speak for themselves - but if we continually give it back to the opposition it makes it harder for us. That's our one major focus."

The Blues have added quality to their list. Mercurial midfielder-forward Paddy Anderson has crossed from arch-rival South Warrnambool, Otto Opperman will return after a stint at Bellarine league club Barwon Heads and Damien McCorkell.

Austin Steere, who was training with Carlton's VFL side, will feature at Victorian Amateur Football Association club Uni Blacks. Wil Fleming, meanwhile, has moved to Noosa. The duo are the two major exits from the Reid Oval-based club.

Parkinson said 15-year-olds Reggie Mast and Amon Radley had impressed through the pre-season and earmarked the pair as potential senior debutants in 2022.

He said the Blues had placed heavy emphasis on match-play through the summer and hoped it would bear fruit throughout the campaign.

"Our fitness has improved. Our focus was on the ball movement, skill-based stuff," Parkinson said.

"After coming out of 2020 a lot of our boys did running in that non-season and we sort of rolled into pre-season with that fitness base behind us continued that through.

"But it ended up probably backfiring a bit. It didn't equate to that football fitness. We've gone back to that shorter style of running.

"Our running has been based around those short sprints and things which footy is about."

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Warrnambool will travel to Geelong on Saturday to play South Barwon in a practice match. Parkinson said he typically wouldn't schedule a scratch match prior to round one but felt circumstances early in the season meant it was appropriate.

"You get Easter off, which is after round two, and then there's May race week off which is after round four or five," he said.

"We thought we could roll straight into round one not having that week off before which is sort of the tradition."

Warrnambool will play Portland in round one.

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