Campbell Brown and Gary Ablett work up a sweat at the Suns' Mooloolaba camp. Photo: Action in Focus
WITH the AFL as competitive as it has ever been, clubs use pre-season training camps to gain an edge on rivals. Coaches and fitness staff are constantly thinking of different forms of training and locations to give them the perfect preparation.
In my time, I've been to Portsea, New Zealand, Coffs Harbour, Tasmania and Kokoda. All camps have had very different aims and purposes. Early in my career, the main aim was to get away together, train lightly and bond over a few beers. Kokoda was to establish an identity as a playing group. Then there were the highly competitive team events and challenges in the mode of The Amazing Race. In the previous three years, Coffs Harbour was a high-intensity training camp.
The Suns' first pre-season training camp was held just before Christmas in Mooloolaba. Just a few days before, the only information we had was a list of clothes to take. On arrival, we were introduced to a former SAS sergeant who would be in charge of us for the next three days.
The first thing he did was to empty everyone's bags and confiscate anything that was not on the list, including all the boys' extra food and lollies they had hoped to smuggle in. We were told that the sole aim of the camp was to expose the playing group to extreme physical, mental and emotional challenges to promote leadership and enhance physical capabilities. At the end we were all to vote for the leadership group.
While all players are used to getting pushed physically, it is not often that we get tested out of our comfort zones. One way to do this was disrupt our sleeping patterns and see how people responded. On our first night, we were woken by our hotel phone at 1am and told to assemble in a car park in the rain for a fire drill. Due to a few players taking their time, we were ordered to hold plank position and do finger push-ups until the last man arrived. Not until we were all there were we allowed back up to our beds, only to be woken again at 3am for a repeat.
The next night we were woken at 2.30am and all met in the conference room. There, we were forced to sit through Inglourious Basterds and take notes on certain aspects of the film. I'm sure it's a great movie, but have you ever woken up at that time to watch a movie? When it finished at 5.15, we started our training for the day and didn't finish until 6pm.
On our last night, we had officially wrapped up the camp. However, a few boys realised how easy it was to get the players out of bed and took great delight in ringing rooms at all hours of the night pretending to call for a fire drill. The players who went running down to a vacant car park in their pyjamas didn't find it amusing.
Another way we were tested was food deprivation. We were supplied minimal food and what we were given was often unpalatable. Breakfast consisted of a dozen raw eggs to maintain our protein, tinned oysters and crab meat, a carton of milk and some almonds. Players trying to keep up their muscle mass had no choice but to hold their noses and eat up.
After six to seven hours of physical labour, we would finally be given an esky and 20 minutes for lunch. Starving, we would rip open the lid only to look down at tripe, sheep brains, liver, smoked canned muscles and sardines. Some boys grinned and beared it, many gagging as they ate. I didn't even try. That food was not for me. Dinner was a bit more palatable with some sausages and beef patties on bread.
Plenty of leadership was shown, not just by the senior players but also the younger guys. You see different sides of players in tough environments; what they are like when hungry and fatigued. Our leadership group will be announced soon.
