Fan, member and long-time pre-season camp attendee Andrew Sloman signs off with his final column from Richmond's Pre-Season Camp from Apollo Bay. “Slowy” first attended Camp in Arizona in 2011, and this year’s camp was his seventh and first since 2020.

The clouds were dark and low but the spirits were high as Day 3 dawned. We all knew that this day was going to be tough physically. The coaches hadn’t revealed much but the playing group knew it was coming. The only instruction at breakfast was to head down to the beach, where a circle was marked out of seaweed. The Club’s Boxing and Wrestling Coach “Clanger” took the group through a warm up and then it was into a round of “last person standing” wrestling bouts in random groups of five players. Some interesting tactics were employed, where smaller players would group together to evict a larger player from the ring. The wrestling was intense. We then formed into our teams and it was group against group wrestling. My Yellow team took on the Green team. I didn’t have to wrestle but decided to help my team out as player injuries restricted our numbers who could do this activity. I stepped into the ring and instantly regretted my decision when Ivan Soldo from the Green team walked over and said to me “so you want to wrestle then?” My eviction from the ring soon followed.

After the wrestling, we headed back to the caravan park for a warm shower and change of clothes, and then it was back to the roster of team activities at facilities around the town. The Yellow Team headed to the Apollo Bay Bowling Club for some lawn bowls challenges. Quite frankly, we excelled and the Apollo Bay Bowls Club President Bruce was impressed. After that, we headed to the Apollo Bay Golf Club for a series of golf challenges for points. You may think that golf challenges are not overly physical, but when you include rules like a limited number of balls per team and time limits, it does become quite physical. For example, in the nearest to the pin par 3 challenge, our team of six had three balls to use, so you had to run approximately 300 metres to pick up your ball (if you could find it!) and return to the tee for others to use.

After golf, it was Basketball and Swimming at the Apollo Bay Recreation Centre. The swimming involved diving for objects on the bottom of the pool, with the difficulty increased through the use of blacked out googles. Again, Yellow team excelled at both tasks. At the Basketball Court, we posed for photos with students from the next door Primary School. It was their lunch break and they knew that some AFL footballers were nearby, and their teacher was a mad Tiger supporter! What has made this camp special has been the opportunity to not only build connection internally, but building connection through engagement with the Apollo Bay community has added a very special element to this Camp. The community has been incredibly welcoming and just so happy to host us in the town.

Lunch was then provided at the Apollo Bay Golf Club. Our recent premiership cups were displayed for the members to enjoy, and Nank gave a thank you speech to the Club. We then ventured back to the caravan park for the infamous water bucket challenge. For those that are not familiar with this challenge, it involves passing water over your head to a teammate behind you, with all participants wearing blindfolds. The task involves communication, strength, general teamwork and resilience in that you get incredibly wet and cold! Basically this task descended into one big water fight, encouraged mostly by the senior coach!

Whilst still wet, we transitioned to a hill climb bike ride up Wild Dog Road. Yes this road behind Apollo Bay was incredibly steep and it was a 15km of pure hell. Still, we all got through it, although this lucky correspondent was riding an E-Bike. The playing group and coaches were not.

At the end of the ride, we were presented with the challenge of carrying a makeshift stretcher, weighed down with bags of rocks, up another steep road to Marriner’s Lookout behind the town. As Livo explained, only four team members could touch the stretcher and the weight of the stones effectively represented the weight of an injured mate. The stretcher and stones could not touch the ground. Not only was this task extremely demanding physically, it required teamwork and strategy to ensure that balance was maintained as you climbed the hill. A very tough task at the end of a long day, but all teams pushed through and completed it. Our reward was a magnificent view over the town and Bass Strait.

That evening, we formally concluded the camp with the presentation of the Tony Mangan Award. Honourable mentions went to Juddy Clarke and Trent Cotchin, but the winner was Kamdyn McIntosh! A group dinner and some singing then followed. The Coaches singing Highway to Hell perfectly reflected the nature of the afternoon’s bike ride. Probably the best singing award would go to Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto who did a great rendition of the Proclaimers song “500 Miles”, with accompanying dance moves. A wonderful evening reflecting the team values of “Celebrate and Have Fun”.

So that concludes the 2023 Pre-season Camp. Always a purposeful part of the season calendar. I’m very grateful to the Club, the Football Department and the AFLM playing group for allowing me to attend. And I’m sure the Club is very grateful for the incredible support and encouragement from the Apollo Bay Community. It was an honour and privilege to spend a few days in such a wonderful community.