Victoria Barracks and Sydney Swans join forces

Victoria Barracks is embedding its physical training instructors within the ranks of the Sydney Swans in a bid to learn fitness lessons which may benefit elite soldiers

Corporal Simon Parker, Tom Harley, Major General Gus McLachlan, John Longmire and Sergeant Matt Barnes at the SCG. Picture: Adam Yip

Every good army keeps its allies close and in the case of the officers at Victoria Barracks it’s the Sydney Swans at the neighbouring SCG they’ve welcomed into their ranks.

The two organisations have formed a partnership involving army physical training instructors being seconded to the Swans’ high performance team.

The soldiers will spend two weeks learning how the AFL team keeps its athletes in top physical condition with a view to apply some of the same concepts back in to the Army.

Commander Forces Command Major General Gus McLachlan says he hopes it will be a reciprocal relationship, with the Swans able to tap into army’s expertise in leadership and team building. “We have about 15 per cent of our work force injured at any given time,” Maj Gen McLachlan says.

SHAKE ON IT: Major General Gus McLachlan and and Sydney Swans head coach John Longmire at the SCG. Picture: Adam Yip

“Some of that’s unavoidable if you’re jumping through a window to do a building clearance, but some of it is because we might not be using the best practice training, stretching, warm up or warm down.

“What excites me about professional sports teams is when they get a new player in they have a graduated program to build up fitness and body size — sometimes up to three years.

“In the army we have a tendency of rushing them to get as fit as possible as fast as possible, but I think maybe we need to tell young people to slow down.”

Sergeant Matthew Barnes and Corporal Simon Parker are the first two soldiers to take part in the program.

The two organisations are keen to share their expertise. Picture: Adam Yip

They’ve followed the players through each part of their training, including post match, and this Friday will travel with them to Hawthorn for their round eight away game.

Sgt Barnes says he was impressed with how the Swans adapted their training to individuals.

“They pull their guys out of full training, do partial training or add certain additional training so by game day they’ve got as many people as possible on paddock,” Sgt Barnes says.

“There are a lot of parallels between footy clubs and defence in that we are both training to fight or compete.”

Swans football operations manager Peter Berbakov says the partnership came about after discussions on the compatibilities between the two organisations.