Katie Mullan can't envisage how the Irish women's hockey squad can train properly on Saturday if the new Government regulations are strictly enforced.
The Ireland captain is adopting a wait and see approach for now, hoping that national sports bodies can get the clarification they need for their elite athletes in terms of training in pods of more than 15 people.
If that clarification isn't forthcoming, Mullan struggles to see how serious training can be done at their Abbotstown base.
The squad that has already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics next summer only recently met for the first time since lockdown for training.
"We'll have to wait and see what the restrictions mean for elite sports teams and how we fall into that," said Mullan, a key member of the Ireland panel that finished runners-up in the last World Cup.
"The date for our programme getting up and running was the beginning of September, when we hoped to go into a set-up of training part-time together three times a week.
"Although we haven't been tested, we get our temperature checked every time we go into Sport Ireland and onto the pitch, we are monitored every day symptoms. We take the protocols very seriously.
"In a club environment, I could see how you could easily limit training to 15 - but it's just not possible for us as an international squad of 30-plus members, with all the staff we need on top of that.
"We need our physio and strength and conditioning people, and coaches. It's virtually impossible to split the squad for us to make the gains we need to perform on the world stage in 12 months time.
"We can continue to do our regional training in groups lower than 15 - but it's very difficult to replicate the work we need to do with the Ireland set-up in smaller pods.
"But I am hopeful that they will maybe look at international teams slightly differently. We have 12 months to get things right, but there are improvements we have to make.
"Hockey Ireland had some return to match plan guidelines that were to be released this week, but they've now had to put those steps into review. They're working hard to see how to deal with it."
Mullan, 26, is also player-coach of her club, Ballymoney, so has a real understanding of the protocols that had been put in place up until now.
"So I have to make sure the guidelines are in place and are adhered to," she said. "It's no harm for me to have that education from a coaching perspective.
"As a player, you might see some opportunities to avoid some protocols but in my position I realise the importance of sticking to them."
Mullan described it as "insane" that it's now more than two years since Ireland's exploits in London on the world stage, when they reached the World Cup final and lost to the Netherlands.
But she stressed the importance of moving on and not being blinded by nostalgia.
"It has flown by," she said. "It's been good that we've played in European and Olympic qualifiers since then, a lot of exposure to top level hockey has allowed us to build.
"It's something that will always be quite vivid in our minds but we also know we have very much moved on as a squad. We have new players and a new coach so there's definitely vibes of moving on and that had to happen to move forward.
"It will be something that we won't fully reflect on until we're all retired. You've got to keep your eye on the ball at this level."
