WARRNAMBOOL Wolves senior co-coach Josh Bateman saw a silver lining in the coronavirus-enforced hiatus to his side's training and playing.
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The club's two under 12s, two under 14s, under 16s and senior mens teams all took to the pitch on Sunday for the first club-sanctioned training in three months after coronavirus restrictions were eased recently.
The return to training came three days after Warrnambool City Council approved the club's request to restart practice at its Harris Street Reserve home.
But before all of the hurdles were cleared Batemen, who coaches alongside Corrie Shields, had studied ways of getting the best out of his side.
"I have studied the technical side of things, what drills you can do and where people aren't in close contact with each other," the 27-year-old said.
"It's a full contact sport and you'll be surprised how close people can get. It's just about trying to pull that all together."
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The playing mentor, who is the team's striker and the leagues reigning golden boot winner, said there was plenty of energy and excitement about returning to training on Sunday.
"We all gathered, while social distancing, and they were all buzzing to get on the pitch and the last thing they want to be doing is waiting for us to say 'yeah, you can go for it'," he said.
"It's feeling good (to be back). It's been three months since we kicked a ball with a lot of the lads so to get back into it and get the legs going a little bit is good for all of us."
Bateman said the group had stayed in contact and competitive with each other via the Strava fitness app.
"A lot of people have been doing some running and we have a Warrnambool Wolves group on Strava and we have been monitoring each other's time and seeing who can beat who in a five-kilometre challenge," he said.
"Some of us have been doing press up challenges and we are just taking time to get over any pre-season struggles that we had so we can get into this position so we can come back and really go for it.
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"We have had quiz nights and keeping the group together. We didn't want players to lose interest either.
"Going forward we will be taking these training sessions on and we have planned out 10 drills so that everyone will be distanced but also work on the technical and fitness side to get them up and running for the season."
Bateman, who trained with his partner during isolation, said it would take time for the playing group to get back into the full swing of training.
The striker was confident the squad could regain the momentum it was building during its pre-season games back in March in the coming weeks.
Wolves president Brett Gasper said it was good to see the club's members flood back to Harris Street Reserve and back into some slightly altered training.
"We put the world out on Thursday after we got confirmation we could use the ground and the response has been really good," he said.
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