Premier Division champions Dundalk have lined up friendlies with top four rivals Derry City and Bohemians over the next week.
Derry will travel to the Oriel on Friday afternoon to meet the Lilywhites, while Dundalk will also be at home to Bohs next Tuesday as preparations ramp up ahead of the July 31st resumption.
“We hope to add games beyond that but that’s all that we have confirmed at the minute,” said Dundalk boss Vinny Perth.
“It’s not that common to play teams in your own league but we feel it will be good preparation for Europe.”
Perth was pleased with the first proper training hit out his players have managed in four months, an 11 v 11 training game last Friday.
"We trained really hard last week so for them to get through 60 minutes was really good," he said.
“There’s a lot of things we need to work on. We created some chances but there’s definitely room for improvement and that’s what you want from these games.
“It was our first game back after four weeks of training. Normally, we’d play a game before that but we just need to be careful.
"You can see around the world that when football came back a lot of injuries were picked up.
“We have a couple of niggles ourselves but that’s part and parcel of things and we still have a good bit of time before the season starts.
"Most of the heavy lifting is done. It’s just about improving combinations and things like that now.”
The club's new signings - Nathan Oduwa, Josh Gatt and Stefan Colovic - all featured in the training game.
While Patrick McEleney sat it out with a knock, Perth was pleased to see John Mountney back in action after injury, while under-19 centre-back Andrew Quinn stepped in for Sean Hoare, who also missed out with a minor problem.
“It was John’s first game in a long, long time,” Perth told Dundalk's website.
“There was a bit of rustiness there but he got through it and it was the same with Sean Murray.
"I also thought Andrew looked like he belongs in the group, which is good. We have players coming through the system which is important".
