The club welcomed the recent news that Group 10 would be running a shortened eight week competition across the junior grades in 2020, following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

England said the club's youngsters will relish the chance to get on the field for any amount of football.

"We're all very keen to get back and start playing. Even though it's going to be a shortened competition it's great news," he said.

"Eight rounds is absolutely better than nothing at all and to still have a couple of rounds of finals for the teams that will make it is great news for them as well.

"Three months ago a competition like this didn't look like happening at all so it's outstanding in that respect."

Indeed, when shutdowns began taking place in March it looked like sports would be hit hard by the changes, and there was much uncertainty around the traps.

England said it's been a tough couple of months for those juniors playing the long waiting game.

"It's about getting the kids out and moving around, keeping up the continued participation. There's been a long period of time where these kids have been sitting still due to what's been going on with COVID in the past few months," he said.

"I don't think any of the parents have enjoyed that either so everyone's keen to get out playing again."

England said the community should be proud of their efforts in helping the competition get up and running, simply by being sensible around the coronavirus and respecting social distancing.

"We were always relatively confident that we'd be able to get up and going, but that was dependent on the public health acts," he said.

"The big take away from this is that none of this could have happened if people didn't do as they were asked.

"We had to try and let this virus kill itself off, and there's a lot of joy around that fact because it shows that we're a smart enough bunch to know what's good for us."

Group 10 finalised their decision to run the junior grades after a meeting on Thursday night, and the Saints signalled their intention to return to training at the start of July.