WITH temperatures pushing 30 degrees and the humidity above 70 per cent, the cream of the Hawthorn crop sweated it out at Advocate Park yesterday as they completed another gruelling training session during their camp in Coffs Harbour this week.
This is the third summer in a row that the Hawks have spent some time in Coffs Harbour preparing for the upcoming season and the club’s high performance coach David Rath says that travelling north from their Waverley base is a golden opportunity for training.
“It’s good to get up here especially at the camp where it’s a pretty closed environment,” Rath said.
“That’s good because we can practise a little bit of strategy and that but it’s also useful for getting into an environment where there is an element of hard work because of the heat as well.
“So we really like bringing our guys up here and they come here with the attitude that this is a really solid week of training and bringing them into an environment like this it actually promotes that a little bit too.”
During their first two visits to Coffs Harbour the 2008 premiers generally kept to themselves but yesterday they gave some young local talent the opportunity to train alongside them and see first hand how it is done at the elite level.
The quartet of Pat Gillingham, Daley Bear (pictured contesting against Roughead), Jack Campbell and Brendan Norton went stride for stride with guns such as captain Sam Mitchell, Campbell Brown, Jarryd Roughead and Cyril Rioli.
“This is the first time that we’ve actually got the kids involved and I think we’re going to have a little bit of a chat to some of the coaches later on,” an impressed Rath said.
“Probably that’s been driven by (AFL NSW/ACT Regional Manager Northern NSW) Mark Heaney who obviously has got some links with the Hawks as he used to coach with the Eastern Ranges back there so we’re only too happy to help out where we can.”