The SSA chief executive isn't simply looking for a silver lining on the coronavirus cloud but acknowledging an athlete's ability to overcome setback can be the biggest X-factor of all.

Calverley says the Academy, like everyone in the community, was rocked by the upheaval of Covid-19 and ensured sports psychology featured in their response.

"We see at the higher level of sport, so many environments are so controlled and athletes not having to deal much with external distractions and so on... you hear stories at the Olympics where a bus breaks down or something and some can't handle it," Calverley said.

"Some of those athletes are just more resilient than others, coping better than others, with those external distractions. And that's why we felt getting that work with the sports psychologists in with the athletes, especially at the start of the crisis, was important.

"One, so that we could manage their mental health. But two, using this as an opportunity to say, okay, here's an obstacle, how do we get around it? How do we not let it affect our performance, or our preparation?"

The SSA sports programs are beginning to ease back towards normality, with rugby, hockey and netball programs getting back to training. There'll be testing, to see where everyone's at after the hibernation, then skills training and hopefully competition.

Calverley says the Academy has been fortunate in being able to keep its full-time staff on board and just change the way they work.

"We were probably lucky in a sense. We didn't have to lay staff off. It still affects everyone - us and the individual sporting codes, the community, the money for sponsorships and all those things," he said.

"So we continue to work at an executive level on how we can overcome those sorts of challenges and work collaboratively with government to ensure that we're going to be viable into the future."

Calverley says the regional sports academies, a network that SSA is part of, may find more call for their services given the pandemic's impact on sport and its governing bodies.

"We can provide opportunities to sports to use us as their pathway provider. If they can't afford to bring all staff back in, the regional academy network across the state can step in straight away and continue to provide pathways for athletes so there's not a gap there for them over the next couple of years," he said.

"Because it'll be over the years to come that we see the full effect or the true effect of Covid."

The benefits of recent investment in their online resources helped SSA manage, delivering webinars and holding zoom sessions.

"For a lot of the kids, sport's their life. You rip that away from them and there can be unfortunate consequences. So we did some work in sports psychology over the first few weeks and months especially," he said.

"We did some more work with athlete sponsorship, injury prevention and maximising performance. We brought in some expertise around those areas so we can provide the best education for them in that."

Calverley said the most important message was to work on anything that will help you prepare better for sport's return. Whatever comes next, athletes will have 2020 as a benchmark for future disruptions.