The Otago Lois Muir team will be looking to build on its impressive record when it opens its campaign against Canterbury at the Edgar Centre tonight.
Otago has a proud record in the Lois Muir Challenge, the feeder to the ANZ Championship.
It won the inaugural tournament in 2008 and was runner-up last season.
Shooter Greir Campbell and defender Jaimee Power, members of the team which won the title in 2008, are still in the squad. The Georgie Salter-coached team has an experienced core of players who have all played netball at a higher level.
Campbell, Power, Louise Thayer, Shannon Francois and Kirsten Craig played for the Otago senior side which was fifth at the national championships last year.
Thayer, an athletic goal keep, was called into the Steel squad last month as a replacement for the injured Sheryl Scanlan. Former Silver Ferns shooter Jodi Brown has also been named in the team. She is returning to netball after giving birth in January.
However, Brown will not play for Otago this weekend as she is in Perth with the Steel squad after being up as a late replacement for Hayley Saunders.
The game starts at 7pm. Canterbury will return tomorrow to play Southland at 10am.
• Lois Muir Challenge - Otago squad
Shannon Francois, Grace Power, Jaimee Power, Greir Campbell, Louise Thayer, Kirsten Craig, Jodi Brown, Maia Hill, Storm Purvis, Teuila Fuatai, Claire Adams, Gina Crampton.
