"We just want to get back out there and play," the Bulldogs coach declared in response to the BFNL's announcement on Friday of its intent to restart its 2021 season this weekend on June 12.

The competition has temporarily been on hold since the state went into lockdown for seven days at midnight on May 27.

As a consequence, two rounds of BFNL matches were postponed.

Those matches have now been rescheduled for June 19 (round seven) and June 26 (round eight), leaving the Bulldogs' round nine clash against Sandhurst as originally fixtured this weekend.

Readying for their first match since a hard-fought, but convincing 13-goal win against Eaglehawk on May 15, Rymer felt a lack of recent match-play would be more than offset by the sheer enthusiasm of being back on court.

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The first-season Bulldogs coach empathised with Sandhurst, which by this Saturday will have gone 35 days without playing a match, but she expected the reigning premiers to be as dangerous as ever despite the long break.

"It feels like we all haven't played forever - and for us it was unfortunate we came off a bye, played one and then missed two," she said.

"The girls have put the disruption behind them, they are feeling it's been too long and they just want to play.

"Sandhurst being Sandhurst, they have such great connections, I expect they will pick up things pretty quickly.

"(The long break) has not been ideal for them, but it's not ideal for anyone at the moment."

Despite the recent seven-day lockdown, the Bulldogs weren't lying idle.

"The minute lockdown was announced we set up some training programs and put them on our Facebook group and each coach followed up with their teams and made them accountable," Rymer said.

"We had the girls posting videos online of them doing the sessions, so it's been pretty good in that sense. The girls stayed pretty active and connected.

"We were trying to figure out the best way to do it and whether we do a Zoom, but it was hard with people in different places at different times and people picking up work where they could because they needed it.

"So having a fitness program they could do in their own time worked best for us."

Intriguingly, if the lockdown in Melbourne was to be extended again into this weekend and travel between metropolitan and regional parts of the state continued to be restricted, Gisborne would need to make do without three of its A-grade squad, headed by star goal shooter Clare Vearing.

"They're all goalers too ... it would be nice if they were spread out a bit," Rymer said.

"But we're planning as if this weekend will go ahead and they will be available.

"We've told the girls right across the board to not use this as an excuse to go backwards in fitness and use it as a chance to build."

Gisborne will return to action firmly entrenched in the league's top three, level with Kangaroo Flat on four wins and one draw and two points ahead of Sandhurst on four wins and one loss.

Rymer said it was a great position to be in, especially considering the Bulldogs have yet been able to field their best seven players in any game, albeit still with plenty of work to do.

"We're pretty content, but not getting excited about anything - we still want to improve on that (record)," she said.

"Until we play Sandhurst, that will give us a truer measure of where we are at and what we need to do.

"That's all you can do, considering we don't know if we are going to get a (full) season in and what's going to happen. But we are excited to play Sandhurst given they and Flat have been the benchmarks this season."

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