Swindon Town Head Coach Ben Garner and his team are chomping at the bit to get back to business ahead of Wednesday's homecoming.
Following what was a lengthy and enforced break due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the Reds will finally kick a ball in competitive anger tomorrow night when they take on Stevenage at The County Ground (7:45pm Kick-Off).
The 2-0 loss away at Barrow on Saturday 11th December was the last time Town were in action, and Garner now can't wait to see his team shake the rust off and get back into the swing of things.
"We're getting there - we were badly hit by it (COVID) to be honest, we had 16 players and seven staff go down with COVID," Garner told the local media at his pre-match press conference earlier today.
"It did wipe us out to a certain degree but we're getting back up to speed and we are getting bodies back in.
"We had a complete shutdown because of the amount of cases there were, so we thought it was best to close the training ground down and keep everyone away for a period of time.
"We then gradually built back up.
"We had a very small group to start that came in and worked with Scott Marshall for a couple of days, and then we've been able to build back up over the last week or so now.
"We had quite a large number come back in on Boxing Day and we're still two missing but, under the new guidelines, we're just waiting for them to test negative.
"They are a week in now so if they test negative on consecutive days then they can come back in.
"It was a disruption, there is no point saying otherwise, but we've worked very hard since coming back in and it is what it is.
"It is a situation we've got to try and overcome and it is the same for a lot of other teams in the league, but we'll be prepared for Stevenage.
"Obviously team selection is heavily weighted on who is available and who hasn't been too affected by it, and we've got to give consideration to the fact that we play again three days later, so we've got to balance the squad over the two games and pick what we think is the best team for those games.
"The players have come back in great spirits, they've worked really hard this week and I think in some ways it was a break, albeit one that we didn't envision, that could be useful in some ways in terms of mentally a bit of a downtime and we're looking forward to getting going again now."
