Group 10: St Pat's make the finals for the first time in five years, but will they play?

The announcement on Thursday morning that the lockdown of regional New South Wales would be extended until at least August 28, was followed soon after by Group 10 chairman Linore Zamparini confirming the plan was still to stage a five-team finals series in his competition.

That is good news for St Pat's, who scrapped into the finals in fifth position.

But Merritt worries that any further extensions of the lockdown may force Group 10 to look at a shorter finals series involving fewer teams, or even the remainder of the season being cancelled.

"It is nice to say that we qualified and mixed it up with the best teams in the Group, it's not ideal that this has come now, hopefully we can get a game in," he said.

"We are hopeful that we can still get a game under our belt to finish the year off, even if it's a knockout type system on a weekend, but I guess we'll see what happens.

"It's the way the world is at the moment, very frustrating."

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It has already been a stop-start campaign for the Saints, but Merritt felt they had been building momentum over the last two months.

They'd beaten Mudgee and Bathurst Panthers, had another draw with the men in black, and suffered narrow two-point defeats to Orange Hawks and Orange CYMS - all of them teams who qualified for the finals.

It was an effort which saw them take fifth spot and be poised for finals in Group 10's top grade for the first time in five years.

"I'm super proud of the boys. At the start we lost our first four and for them to stick behind me and believe in out processes - yeah super proud," Merritt said.

"The main thing for me this year was to be competitive in every game, not let any game be a blow-out and I'm proud to say that no-one has really blown us off the park.

"We've definitely found our groove now ... so we have got a lot of confidence going into the semis. We started to string a few solid games there together.

"So lockdown, it's a little bit disappointing, a little bit bitter-sweet for us, it's the first time St Pat's have made the finals in five years."

While there was no Group 10 premiership at all in 2020 as COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the entire season, Merritt said it would feel worse if 2021 only gets as far as the completion of regular home and away rounds.

It would mean even more hard work, rather than just a pre-season, would have resulted in the same no premiership result scenario.

"A lot of teams have put a lot of effort in and tried to work around the COVID stuff, we've put the effort in to make the semis and we're finally at the back end of the season and if it gets calls off, it would be really disappointing," he said.

"A lot of players would be disheartened from putting that hard work in but not being able to see how far you can go."

Merritt is still asking his players to do personal training in anticipation of an elimination final against Orange Hawks, but said:

"If the team doesn't have a back end and then we'll just rebuild for next year."

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