The SRSS football team's four-day rookie camp wrapped up last Thursday.

Now those first-year players will join the returning veterans at spring camp which begins Monday at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School.

“Rookie camp was a big success this year,” said Sabres head coach Jamie Peters. “We had about 35 new players come out and try the sport. We had a lot of younger grade 9's that are going into grade 10 – we had about 27 of those guys come out and try it out. It was an awesome experience for those kids and for our coaches.”

Peters says he was pleased with the enthusiasm he saw from his first-year players at rookie camp.

“A lot of them were new to the sport. I think of the 35 there were 25 that hadn't played organized tackle football before. It was a lot of learning and it was lot of figuring out the hitting and the impact of the game. We started to get into some plays the last couple of days and they were excited to move forward to actually scrimmage and take all those individual skills into a team perspective.”

Twenty-five returning players will join the rookies on the practice field starting Monday afteroon.

“We're going to let some of the grade 9's and the majority of new players continue to develop at the rate that they need to and with the skill level that they have," said coach Peters. "Then we're going to take the newer grade 10's and 11's and combine them with our returning players. We're going to see that all gel together.”

Spring camp will take place from May 2nd – 26th.