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DESPITE wins being hard to come by and enduring an abandoned season in 2020, outgoing Heathcote coach Wayne Primmer says he will look back on his time with the Saints as an enjoyable experience.

Primmer has been with the Saints for the past three years in the Heathcote District league and has now finished as senior coach.

While he was at the club for three years, Primmer only had the chance to coach for two seasons due to the cancelled 2020, with the Saints finishing 8^th in both 2019 (1-15) and this year (2-11).

"I've enjoyed my time at the club," Primmer said at the weekend.

"Were we or were we not successful? You could look at it results-wise and say no, but in terms of players wanting to be at the club then you could say yes, we were successful in that area.

"We were able to keep the majority of our players and we were able to recruit players to the club.

"The most disappointing part of this year was apart from basically our first game, we haven't been able to put a full side on the park and that hurt us."

The season ended on a tough note for the Saints, who due to the unavailability of their Melbourne-based players were forced to forfeit their reserves game against Lockington-Bamawm United, before the senior team was held to just 0.7 (7) in a 157-point hiding.

"We had 18 players that day who we couldn't call on across the two sides... so do you just forfeit?," Primmer said.

"But we weren't going to do that with our seniors. It's our responsibility to put a team out there and we did.

"All I wanted from the boys was to give effort and I couldn't fault them. We weren't good enough and copped our whack, but the boys gave effort and they never gave in."

Through what was a severely disrupted season that was ultimately called off without a finals series being played, of the 13 games the Saints played, only five were at home, while nine of their games were against teams that finished in the top five.

"It has been the same for all clubs, but it has been hard work this year... one Thursday night you could be getting ready to go training and then all of a sudden find out you can't go because of a lockdown," Primmer said.

"You weren't sure when you'd come back and play again and what sort of lead-in you'd have in terms of training, so it was taxing at times throughout because it's something we haven't been through before."

Meanwhile, Elmore will have co-coaches next year, with gun tall Dylan Gordon joining Dylan Friedberger at the helm.

Friedberger coached the Bloods on his own this year to a 3-9 record and seventh position on the ladder.

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