And now the countdown to the start of season seven begins.

The Steinbach Regional Secondary School football team wrapped up Spring Camp Thursday.

It was four weeks of teaching, listening and processing.

“Spring is always an awkward time because your seniors are gone and now the team is trying to figure out a new identity,” said Sabres head coach Jamie Peters. “You've got to have new leaders that step up and new playmakers and guys step up and fill roles - we had some guys that did that.”

“We don't worry about schemes, we're not making adjustments for a specific team, we're not doing film...it's really just the basics, the fundamentals and trying to find out which guys want to compete and do that. It's just football and it's nice to see those progressions and the basics,” added Peters.

The Sabres played a pair of John Potter “AAA” Division teams during camp.

Steinbach Regional dropped a 34-6 decision to the Grant Park Pirates and fell 45-7 to the Murdoch MacKay Clansmen.

The score wasn't important but watching a number of his first and second year players get a taste of football in real time was.

“They had their two games to kind of try and find and seize that moment and they'll just continue to grow into those roles as the season goes on - that's all that we can ask for,” said Peters. “We have a number of those guys that are in grade 10 and grade 11 that are going to be looking to step in and take on more of a role and we're just excited to see this new team kind of figure out who they are and what they want to be.”

Peters was hopeful the school could field a junior varsity team this fall but that won't happen.

“It was a little disheartening to see the numbers from our JV team kind of drop off after a week or so but I guess football just wasn't for all those guys. Unfortunately we couldn't make two teams fly but we've got a bunch of kids that want to play football and we'll work with those guys.”

Two graduating Sabres, running back Patrick Maendel and defensive lineman Lucas Thiessen, will play in the Winnipeg High School Football League's 16th annual Senior Bowl Saturday at Investors Group Field at 1 p.m.

“Those guys were great players for us for three years and just outstanding for those guys to get rewarded by playing in the Senior Bowl and being one of those top players in the league,” Peters said. “I'm excited to watch those guys play and represent themselves and our program. It's always great to see a couple of our guys out there.”