AFL clubs staying close to home rather than travel overseas for high-altitude pre-season camps
Forget Arizona, Africa and the Middle East, this year Geelong’s younger players had a camp in Lorne. Are overseas trips a thing of the past? Plus a look back at your club’s travels.
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The soft cap on football department spending and a fear of bad publicity have combined to kill off the AFL overseas pre-season camp, according to fitness guru David Buttifant.
In recent years clubs have travelled to Arizona, Colorado, South Africa and the Middle East in search of a competitive advantage.
This year a group of 16 Hawthorn players, coaches, staff, board members and corporate partners walking the Kokoda Track and five Sydney players who flew to Doha for a sightseeing trip thanks to club sponsor Qatar Airways are the only official club camps that required a passport.
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Geelong’s younger players spent last week in Lorne, about an hours’ drive from GMHBA Stadium. Collingwood and Melbourne have Queensland camps planned and Essendon is heading to Darwin.
Buttifant, a high-performance expert who pioneered Collingwood’s high-altitude camps to Arizona, said he was disappointed to see AFL clubs taking a safety-first approach and missing out on the benefits of overseas camps.
He said players and coaches were staying closer to home due to a number of factors including the new cap on football department spending - a full-scale international trip can cost close to $1 million - daunting logistics and risk-averse approach to a club’s brand, citing the disastrous fallout from Adelaide’s 2017 post-season camp.
“I am slightly disappointed, I think there’s a real opportunity there,” he said.
“In all sports you’re looking for a competitive advantage, you’ll take 1 per cent - look how close the Grand Final was ... whether that’s psychological or cultural, they all play a part towards success.
“You get acute changes in physiology (on a high-altitude camp) but that’s not the main reason you do it ... it’s about developing an environment where you really unite players and that makes them more resilient.
“The key is developing those relationships and trust in each other. Having time with them where you are really uniting them and putting them in an environment that’s really experiential - no distractions, sometimes it’s third world - it’s really life-changing.
“You can protect them but it’s not about that, it’s about creating a bit of discomfort.”
Buffifant, who now takes corporates and troubled youth to Everest Base Camp with his company Resilience Builders, applauded players who opted to undertake similar challenges independently during their off-season break. In recent weeks brothers Tom and Ed Langdon climbed Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, North Melbourne’s Paul Ahern, Cameron Zurhaar, Declan Watson and Sam Durdin plus new Demons ruckman Braydon Preuss flew to Utah, and Brodie Grundy trekked to Everest Base Camp.
Buttifant pointed out Grundy was following in the footsteps of Geelong’s Mark Blicavs, who reached Everest Base Camp last year - then returned to win his club’s best-and-fairest.
“I think it’s great when players like Grundy, Blicavs and the Langdon boys go away like that, there should be more of it. If I was at a club I’d be encouraging more of that,” he said.
“You’d rather see players do that than go to Vegas and get p---ed for two weeks.”
TRAVEL ALBUM
Looking back on your club’s overseas training adventures...
BRISBANE LIONS
The Lions were in South Africa back in 1998 for an Ansett Cup match against Fremantle.
CARLTON
The Blues headed to Abu Dhabi in 2011, staying at the Emirate Palace Hotel and engaging in camel rides, go karting, golf and paintball at the Al Forsan International Sports Resort - plus some footy training.
Back in 2008 Carlton was in South Africa for a pre-season game against the Dockers in Pretoria.
In 2012-13 Mick Malthouse and Buttifant took the Blues to Arizona.
COLLINGWOOD
The Magpies are the best travelled team in the AFL.
Buttifant and Mick Malthouse pioneered the high-altitude camp when they took the Pies to the US from 2005-12. The team was based for the first five years at Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff. In 2012 they opted to venture eight hours further north to Park City, Utah.
In 2009 the Pies played a pre-season match against West Coast at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, and in 2015 they headed to New Zealand.
In January Collingwood players boarded a domestic flight to the Gold Coast, and they are set to travel there again in the new year.
ESSENDON
A group of Bombers visited Japan in 2006 and the club tried high-altitude training in Colorado in 2013-14.
FREMANTLE
In 2008 the Dockers flew to South Africa for an Ansett Cup pre-season game against Carlton.
GOLD COAST
The Suns, led by then skipper Gary Ablett, visited Arizona in 2008.
HAWTHORN
Hawks players first walked the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea in 2004. This year a group of 16 has just returned from the gruelling trek over the Owen Stanley Range.
Coach Alastair Clarkson said earlier this year the trips instil gratitude, unity and the ability to tackle adversity.
“We want to indoctrinate coping mechanisms for our players as early as we possibly can, and that’s why we go to Kokoda,” Clarkson told the club website.
The Hawks tried New Zealand outdoor camps in 2005 and 2017.
NORTH MELBOURNE
The Roos have made trips to Utah since 2014, with a small group of players — Paul Ahern, Cameron Zurhaar, Declan Watson and Sam Durdin plus delisted midfielder Adam Moran and new Demons ruckman Braydon Preuss — paying their own way this year before returning for the official start of pre-season training.
PORT ADELAIDE
Power players sweated it out on a training camp in Dubai in 2014.
RICHMOND
The Tigers haven’t been the biggest proponents of overseas camps but they did go to Arizona in 2011 and nine players visited Brazil for a cultural exchange project in 2013.
Nick Vlastuin and Jack Graham have just returned from Sumatra, Indonesia as part of a partnership between the club and the World Wildlife Fund.
ST KILDA
The Saints were one of the first clubs to embark on an overseas training camp, heading to the UK in 2003, South Africa in 2004 and China in 2005.
St Kilda held a camp in Boulder, Colorado in 2013 and New Zealand the next year. Earlier this year the Saints had a camp in Yea in country Victoria.
SYDNEY
A Swans contingent jetted to the Middle East for four days in November, visiting the Souq Waqif Spice Markets, took a boat cruise and an overnight desert safari thanks to new sponsor Qatar Airways.
WESTERN BULLDOGS
Rodney Eade and Barry Hall tried the haka on an intense week-long New Zealand camp in 2010. The Dogs were one of many teams to visit Colorado in 2013.
Originally published as AFL clubs staying close to home rather than travel overseas for high-altitude pre-season camps
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