"It's been a long time coming," Dubbo Football Association Secretary Manager Jim Auld says.
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The wait for a clear green light for the region's football competitions to resume has been an agonising one and no one knows it more than Auld, who's had the unenviable task of co-ordinating everything for the 2020 season.
"The hardest thing of all is getting the updates from the state government, it's just impossible," Auld said.
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"We've got our approval for sports to resume from July 1, we've still got restrictions dealing with spacing and contact which makes it a bit, well, impossible, but we've got our start dates locked in."
Junior Football had already been given the go-ahead to return on July 5 and the only question mark remain lingered over the senior competition, which is now confirmed for July 6.
While there'll no doubt be difficulties imposed by the continuing restriction measures, Auld says that all the clubs are just happy to be back play this season.
"It's great, some of the club's players won't be able to, some of them have decided not to play because of the shortened season, but they're in the minority," Auld said.
"It's an understandable blow, but we're quite certain we'll have everyone back the following year."
Work is already underway by Auld and others making sure everything is read for all grades of competition; through from the mini-roos to the seniors.
Ensuring a senior season is particularly rewarding for the association, as there was genuine doubt that the state government would allow it to go ahead.
"It's a big thing for us, we were really worried that the state government might not come to the party with the seniors, but we're extremely pleased that they came through for us," Auld said.
While there may be some trimming around the edges, with the men's third and fourth grade sides combining for just this year, all the competitions will get a season if everything goes to plan.
"We're still going to be running all the competitions that we ran last year, especially in the seniors; we'll have first and second grades,' Auld said.
"We might have to combine the third and fourth in the men's competition just for this year, but we'll have our first and second grade women's running as normal as well."
The women's sides returning is a particular boost for Auld, who thinks the level of competition and talent brought by the women's sides has made a huge impact in recent years.
"The women are fighting fit, they're all champing at the bit to get back onto the paddock and we're going to have a really strong women's comp once again when it resumes," Auld said.
"The ladies competition has been steadily increasing and the standard has been improving over the past number of years, and they seem to be going from strength to strength."
At present, the senior competitions will likely feature somewhere around eleven rounds, with decisions on grounds still to be meted out with the Dubbo Cricket Association and council.
"At the minimum it'll definitely be eleven rounds, but we can possibly squeeze another couple in, it's going to depend on the weather, we're told that we're expecting a wet winter this year that might have an impact, so that's all we need."