G’day Tiger Army.

Day 5 was an intense day.

We started with a 30-minute meditation session facilitated by Emma Murray. The session focussed on purpose and the training journey planned for the day.

We then rolled into a team meeting where the coaches outlined the training drill agenda at Southport Oval, and used vision from previous sessions to reinforce some aspects for the team to focus on. The drill list included names and descriptions you would expect, such as “groundball” and “shuttles”, whilst others are more uniquely named, like “Stoppage into Markov”. Then off to Southport Oval we went. My team bus was rocking to the tune “Straya”, which I believe is an Australiana rehash of the song Hey Ya. I do believe we were playing Jack Graham’s song list!

The conditions at Southport were hot and humid. The players executed the drills with gusto and welcomed the heat challenge. The physical load for the morning was high, and the coaches were very happy with the effort and execution. The only sour note was Kamdyn’s injury, and we wish him all the best for his speedy recovery.

After hoovering down a recovery lunch of filled potatoes and salad, we then travelled to the Raw Challenge Mud Run facility on the Gold Coast Hinterland. The objective here was for the various bus teams to complete a 9km mud run through 67 obstacles. No doubt you’ve all seen the digital footage. It was an exacting course, and the 300mm rainfall experienced last week in the area certainly rated the course as a “Heavy 10”, to use the horse racing vernacular. It was great to see the Richmond Man principles being applied as teams worked together to ensure that no-one was left behind, and they worked through the challenges inclusively. Team Black won the day, and I was honoured to be a member of same, although recent medical procedures prevented me from diving into mud.

We returned to our hotel base and went straight into a Richmond Man session. I had the honour, on behalf of our fellow assistants, to present the Tony Mangan Award. Tony was a much loved coterie member who regularly attended the preseason camps, from the inaugural camp in New Zealand in 2010 through to the day he tragically passed in 2015. Tony loved seeing and supporting young football talent being nurtured through our Richmond system. The award is judged based on applying a value set mirroring our Richmond Man behaviours to camp performance. And for the first time we couldn’t split two players, being Liam Baker and Jack Higgins. Congratulations to them both. We finished the session with, literally, a song and dance carry on!

Dinner was pool-side, and a chance to celebrate a great camp. Thank you to the Club, coaches and players for being so inclusive and engaging, and for allowing me to again write the blog for the Tiger Army.

Go Tiges for season 2020!