ST ASAPH City manager Daniel Brewerton has praised his side for their adaptation to new training regulations from the Football Association of Wales.

The Saints’ made their return to training five weeks ago after getting the green light from the FAW, and every team across the country is now in phase two of the governing body’s return to football plan.

Brewerton was highly complementary of his squad’s attitude and commitment throughout this unprecedented period of disruption, which he admitted was “a little tricky” during phase one of the protocol.

He said: “Training is going really well so far, the lads are starting to look a lot sharper.

"During lockdown we were setting running challenges for them to complete each week so that we could keep that base fitness at a high level. It’s meant we haven’t had to spend time on that during the first few weeks of training.

“Phase one was a bit tricky as we were training in small groups so the lads weren’t mixing as much as we wanted, but now we’ve moved into phase two it feels more like preseason where we’ve got everyone together and feeling that buzz around the group again.”

It remains to be seen when the domestic season below the JD Cymru Premier will get underway due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Brewerton is working towards a mid-to-late October start to ensure his squad is able to hit the ground running in the new Lock Stock Ardal Northern League.

“I’m hoping we might get the season up and running around mid to late October, we’ve put a strategic plan in place to build the lads slowly up to that as we don’t want them peaking to early during the preseason, hopefully we’ll have confirmation of that date soon and we can adjust our plan slightly if needed,” he added.

“The work with the reserves is going really well, the league they will be going into is a fantastic opportunity for them to develop as the standard of opposition will be very strong, but also the standard of some of the pitches they’ll be playing on will also be very good. It really is a great platform for a lot of these young players we’re working with.”