The team completed its perfect ANZ Premiership season on Wednesday night, but there has been no time to rest in the front office.
Chief executive Lana Winders has started the process of putting together the 2018 roster, with an eye to reclaiming the title.
"I’m just working through and meeting each of the girls individually now.
"I’m getting from each of them a feel for how they believe the season’s gone this year and what it is we might be able to change up for next and get a feel for their intentions.
"We’re halfway through those meetings now and it’s good. The response from the girls has been really fantastic."
One of the key reasons for the Steel’s success this year was maintaining the core of its roster from 2016.
However, Winders said that might not be so easy this time around.
"That’s the goal, to [keep the team together].
"But obviously when you’ve got a team of the calibre of the Steel and you’ve got other franchises both in New Zealand and Australia looking for ways to improve their roster, the Steel becomes quite a hot target.
"So I’d love to [maintain the squad], but it’s not necessarily going to be very easy this time."
She said it was important to be competitive from a contractual perspective, but the franchise would also highlight the intangible factors to lure its players back.
While a match with the Australian champion Sunshine Coast Lightning had not been firmed up, Winders said it might not be out of the question.
The two teams had a connection through current Lightning coach Noeline Taurua, who coached the Steel last season.
They had linked for a pre-season camp and games in Australia last year.
Winders said it would be good to do that again next pre-season.
"If that was to happen there would have to be a game between the Lightning and the Steel that would be a proverbial clash of the titans.
"It would be very interesting to see.
"Nothing’s firmed up yet, but it’s just one of those tantalising ideas that just now needs a little bit of work now that we’re starting to get out to the end of the 2017 season."
Whatever happened, she was confident the team could go back-to-back.
"Absolutely [we can go back-to-back], without a doubt. No one-year wonder for us — that is the absolute goal.
"And the reason I’m so confident about that is the quality of the people we put around our players.
"Our strength and conditioning, our physio, our manager, our coaching staff, our dietitians and our medical staff and our game analysis people, they are amazing.
"There’s no one star in this team, actually. There’s just a bunch of people that really know what they’re doing supporting the team.
"Keeping those guys on board is just as critical for me as getting that player roster right."
