The Roys headed down to Grantville on the weekend for a pre season camp full of challenging sessions, team bonding, values setting, education and fun!
Senior captains Julian Turner and Jess Hayes have provided us with a look into the weekend and what the teams got up to with the first instalment of their Captain's Diaries for Season 2020.
Keep an eye out for more entries from our captains during the season for their exclusive insights.
Here is Julian's first entry:
A long day at work passes quickly as I rush to finish enough work to get me out in time for my magic carpet ride with Will 'The Wizard' Zaghis. They say a wizard is never late, and in this case theyre right; Wiz arrives precisely when he means to (90 minutes after I expected), leaving me the perfect amount of time to remember various essential camp items Id usually kick myself for forgetting. Pub kitchens close at 8pm in Grantville and its Valentines day, so the five of us opt for a romantic freeway rest stop about half an hour out.
Energy is still high when we arrive, and despite it only being two days since weve trained together, its still exciting to see each new carload of players roll in everyones in a good mood. Jack Hart demolishes me at table tennis and I blame the quality of my bat while Pav and Ned Ryan happily play using a pair of Birkenstocks next to us. Chances for a good nights sleep in cabin 2 are slim with Ligris, Jumeau and Lachy Grace having a stereotypically loud Collingwood/Richmond/Essendon argument outside our window.
As usual, the first discussion of the next morning centres on who sleep talks and snores the loudest. We don our team colours (for me this means the rainbow flag of Seychelles) and pad outside into the mist and rain to meet the coaches. Nine soggy but high-spirited Olympic-themed events follow across Saturday and Sunday, starting with a puzzle-piece scavenger hunt among the stringybarks (won in suspicious circumstances by Spain) and ending with the Seychelles receiving the tiny nations first ever Olympic medal a bronze.
Highlights included a win in the tug of war, second-place finishes in soccer, AFL 9s and the wheelie-bin skills challenge and brand new Fitzroy-ACU recruit Nadia Conte carrying us through the trivia… until she had to compete in a challenge to name current Fitzroy players, most of whom she hadnt met. Everyone gave their all in another gruelling Steve Hurl boot camp, while Sharon underwent a boot camp of her own in the kitchen - cooking lunch and dinner for 60+ almost single-handedly.
Sunday morning and coach Bernie arrived at our cabin door unannounced and far too early, and anyone lucky enough to have dry socks or shoes thanks their lucky stars. The teams are a little sluggish in the final two events of the weekend, clearly with an eye on breakfast for which Sharon collects another gold medal. The last-placed French drew Sharon-coordinated cleaning duty led by Gemma, with help from Lenny, Mia, Yoshi, Ross and the coaches. As we leave it's 'see you next year' to Grantville and 'see you tomorrow' to our teammates. Huge thanks to all the coaches, players and Sharon (again) for putting together another pre-season camp.
