Port Adelaide players get straight to work with gut-busting running session in Noosa

‘THIS is not a running camp,’ Port Adelaide’s head of high performance Ian McKeown said before the Power flew to Noosa on Wednesday morning.

Robbie Gray and Hamish Hartlett pushing themselves at training in Noosa. Picture: Sarah Reed.

‘THIS is not a running camp’, Port Adelaide’s head of high performance Ian McKeown said before the Power flew to Noosa on Wednesday morning.

Good joke, “Mackers”, some of the players probably thought as they hit the track for the first session of a gut-busting week-long training camp on the Sunshine Coast six hours later.

The Power had barely been in town for an hour when they were summoned to the nearby oval - home of the Noosa Tigers - for an hour-long running session in the 28C heat and 70 per cent humidity.

The main item on the menu was 3 x 1km time trials separated by various other running sets and those who weren’t running were working just as hard boxing on in the middle.

Travis Boak and Karl Amon lead a lap around Noosa Oval. Picture: Sarah Reed.

Darcy Byrne-Jones, Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas wore armbands as leaders of their running groups, assistant coaches Chad Cornes and Nathan Bassett went toe-to-toe with the players and recruit Scott Lycett set about impressing his new teammates with a big effort while coach Ken Hinkley was barking encouragement from the sidelines.

“Find a way to fight, get after him, don’t accept the gap, you’ve gotta fight,” Hinkley told his players as they ran past him.

McKeown said Port’s first training camp in three years was a good way for the group to get away together and finish a big block of training they’ve started at home.

“Compared to other camps that we’ve been on, there’s a large training component to it like we would be doing at home,” he said.

“We’ll do extra running in the afternoons and overall the volume will be increased but it would have been done last year anyway.

“(But) we’re not looking at this as a running camp or a massive strength one, it’s about playing on as we would but just doing it (in Noosa).”

Charlie Dixon and Tom Clurey shadow boxing at training. Picture: Sarah Reed.

There were plenty of good signs for the small but enthusiastic group of Power supporters who turned out for the first session of the camp and were met by chief executive Keith Thomas and football manager Chris Davies.

Hamish Hartlett ran strongly as he continues his impressive return from a knee reconstruction, Matthew Broadbent continues to make good progress and Charlie Dixon is working towards running for the first time since his broken leg late last season.

Tom Jonas feels the strain of Port’s first training session on the Sunshine Coast. Picture: Sarah Reed.

Hawthorn is due to arrive half-an-hour down the road at Mooloolaba on Thursday and like Port will get straight to work with Tropical Cyclone Owen a chance to dump 120mm on the region in 24 hours on the weekend.

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