General manager of football Peter Bell expects Fremantle’s week on the Gold Coast to provide a number of important learning experiences to the club’s younger players.
Fremantle’s three primary training sessions will take place at the Southport Sharks Football Club on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and they will also visit Bond University from Monday to Friday for recovery and strength training.
Temperatures reached 30 degrees in high humidity during Monday morning’s training session.
“They’re testing conditions but it would have been 30 degrees back in Perth as well,” Bell said.
“There’s a bit of extra humidity on the Gold Coast so that will be a challenge for the players.
“They’re finely tuned athletes, so they’ll be fine and it will be exactly what our strength and conditioning staff are looking for.”
Bell said the week is a chance for the team’s younger players to experience travelling as a football club.
Fremantle will travel interstate 10 times in 2018, starting with their round two trip back to the Gold Coast to face the Suns at Metricon Stadium on 31 March.
“(Our new draftees) are fitting in really well and this gives them a nice taste of travelling as a professional athlete,” Bell said.
“They get to look at the senior players and see how professionally they approach travel, so it will be a real learning curve for those new players as well.”
Off the training track, Bell said the players will attend gameplan sessions as well as spend their off-time bonding as a group.
“There will be additional gameplan and education sessions just to get everyone on the same page,” Bell said.
“Ross Lyon has used this to great effect in his coaching history and we think there’s enormous value to get everyone together and get everyone on the same page and do a meaningful training week as well.”
Day 1️⃣ = Time to get to work #foreverfreo pic.twitter.com/egU0MsuQ2f
— Fremantle Dockers (@freodockers) December 10, 2018