MARCUS CAVAROLI

AFTER all the brilliant weather Droghedeans enjoyed during the lockdown, the temperature was more akin to March around a wet and blustery Blackstone Motors Marian Park on Sunday morning.

However, it was the body temperatures of the players that were of more concern as members of the Drogheda Town squad assembled for training session number two in the build-up to the resumption of the Leinster Senior League.

First-team manager Paul Crowley

was handed the responsibility of checking the health of his players on arrival and thankfully the morning passed off virtually without a hitch, following on from the first session last Tuesday evening, although Shaun Bannon did pick up a quad injury.

Town are preparing for the restart of league activity on July 18th - more than three months after the country was brought to a shuddering halt by the coronavirus pandemic - and overall Crowley was happy with how the first week of training panned out, albeit with only 12 players and three other people permitted to be out on the field at the same time.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon, the former Drogheda United captain told the Drogheda Independent: ‘Obviously there’s no contact training yet and it’s different the way we plan sessions at the minute.

‘The lads are in good condition physically, but you can see the toll this three months has taken on their bodies.

‘I think we did an hour and a quarter the first night and it was just about getting back on the pitch - there was no stupid running - but the road running they were doing is different to getting back on the pitch and some of them were feeling it really bad.

‘We did long warm-ups and long warm-downs and got some conditioning work in, and we’ll be maintaining that for the next few weeks and keeping it low-intensity to build them back up.

‘It mght be the case that they’ll still bit a little off when the first game comes around, but it’s better that way than picking up a muscle injury.

‘It’s trying to find the right balance and that’s going to be hard, and there’s no point bringing them in [for training] three nights a week.’

From this week clubs are permitted to play matches within their own club and so the firstteam squad are due to face their Under-19 team this Friday, with friendlies against other clubs permitted from July 11th, one week before the league season gets back up and running.

However, the first set of league fixtures have not yet been released.

‘Having only 12 players allowed so far has actually worked out