Flaherty took on arguably the youngest senior squad in the BFNL when he was appointed to the coaching job in October last year.

The 2020 season was going to give Flaherty a golden opportunity to give players fresh from last year's under-18 BFNL premiership side some experience at senior level.

That option has now been taken away after the season was cancelled last week.

"We respect and understand the decision that was made. With everything that's going on at the moment it was the right way to go in terms of health and safety,'' Flaherty said.

"We wanted to play whatever the scenario. We've got such a young group and it seemed as though we were just starting to get things going in the right direction.

"It's always hard to say that before you start playing, but even nine games for this young group would have been great because they wouldn't have been belted physically and mentally for 18 rounds.

"It's a bit tricky for the situation we're in as a club, so we don't want to throw away the progress we've made this year."

Read more: BFNL round 12 rewind - 2013

Flaherty is yet to decide what path the remainder of 2020 will look like for the Roos.

One thing he's sure of is he wants to keep the group together.

"We don't want to cut ties and walk away, it's hard being winter and now no season, so we'll have a break and then come up with a few options,'' he said.

"We'll probably wait until restrictions ease. At the moment it's still two groups of 20 which is not ideal because there's only so much you can do.

"If everything does calm down then we might ramp things up."

Flaherty was confident the talented crop of youngsters coming into senior ranks would stick with the club for 2021 and beyond.

"They've played a lot of junior footy together and they seem as though they're good mates,'' Flaherty said.

"We started a bit slow, but once we got back into things we were getting 34-36 players at training over the past few weeks and it was the young group that was driving that.

"Hopefully, we can keep the young players at the club to take us forward."

Read more: Catch up on all the latest BFNL news

The silver lining to no football this year is Flaherty gets more time to recruit.

The timing of his appointment at the end of 2019 meant the Roos' off-season recruiting was limited.

"We were able to get two or three recruits that we were really happy with, but we were up against it time wise,'' he said.

"We looked at it and the young kids are where the club's success is going to come from.

"From what I've experienced in country footy, if you can get a base and a core group that cares about the club and each other, then that's the main avenue to success.

"Then you can top up with two or three A-grade players, but the first thing you have to do is get the base right."

Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.