From a young gun wrestling with a coach to a session that will stick with one skipper “forever.”
With the hard summer blocks of training behind them, AFL captains have opened up to foxfooty.com.au on their toughest and most gruelling sessions over the pre-season.
They’ve clearly been put through their paces.
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Callum Mills revealed some of his teammates lost “four to five” kilograms after one particular “big session” in high 30 degrees heat, while Alex Pearce opened up on a 20km session right before Christmas break.
At least for them, the real stuff is about to start, where all that training is supposed to pay off when the AFL season kicks off next week.
Read the captain’s answers below from the AFL’s Captains Day.
Josh Kelly (GWS Giants)
“We had a few really humid sessions at our training base. It was hot. Mid 30s. Hot, hard session in the pre-season when you’re doing 14 to 15 km a session.
“I think also our camp was a lot of fun, but pretty tough. We did about a 25km hike through the Blue Mountains, which was a lot of fun. There were a few team activities that day … which was a little bit of fun.
“And then we had a Palm Beach session a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning where we were wrestling in the sand, doing a few combat type things, so that was a lot of fun.
“Xavier O’Halloran was wrestling with (Adam) Kingsley and I don’t know if he went a bit lighter to give Kinga the one up, or whether he had a point to prove, but they were going at it pretty hard.”
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Callum Mills (Sydney Swans)
“Coffs Harbour was a pretty tough one. I was out there for a bit of it, not all of it.
“I think the humidity out there, it was right at the peak of our pre-season load and that was right up there.
“It was over 30 degrees and it was a big session of match play and training. There was not anyone (throwing up) or anything like that. But there was a lot of tired bodies.
“We had a couple of guys losing four to five kilograms, to put that into perspective.”
Harris Andrews (Brisbane Lions)
“There’s been a couple of real hot ones out at Springfield, Brighton Holmes Arena.
“You miss any of the sea breeze that you might get in Brisbane, so we have had a couple of real heaters there where it has been 37 to 38 degrees and the humidity has been through the roof.
“But overall … it’s been a pretty good pre-season in that regard. Early on you do some time trial stuff, which everyone gets a little bit anxious about, a little bit nervous, but just means that everyone cares about it.”
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Touk Miller (Gold Coast Suns)
“I’ve had many — our high performance manager knows how to put a big session together! One that sticks in my mind the most, two or three years ago we went to New Zealand and had done pre-season camp. We were about to finish, it was our last day.
“Boys had gone and had showers and were ready to go down and have dinner and a few years. Everyone got the message to come back out and put your runners on, so we did.
“We ended up running up Coronet Peak, which you’re supposed to drive up — it’s about 8kms! We all met at the top, it was a fantastic bonding moment, top be fair. But if you’d asked me halfway through, I would’ve said otherwise.”
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Alex Pearce (Fremantle Dockers)
“We did 20km worth of running — a 10km footy session and a 10km obstacle course/mental session. That was the day before we left for Christmas break, it took three weeks to get over that one!”
Jordan Dawson (Adelaide Crows)
“The last session before Christmas, we rolled in and thought it was going to be a pretty solid session. We ended up doing 20 minutes of skills and then Darren Burgess told us to chuck our runners on.
“We ended up running for an hour and a half after that and did about 18 km. That was definitely the hardest session mentally and physically. (The weather) wasn’t too bad, it was high 20s, but it was pretty gruelling — a lot of 10km efforts and 100m sprints. That’s definitley one that will stick with me forever I reckon.”
James Sicily (Hawthorn)
“My mind instantly went to Kokoda. That wasn’t pre-season but it was definitely the hardest thing I’ve done.”
Zach Merrett (Essendon)
“We did a combative session this year. I think it was about 36 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a lot but it was med balls and tackles and wrestling. It wasn’t a lot of fun to be honest.”
Toby Nankervis (Richmond)
“We had our camp down in Inverloch, that was really tough.”
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