13 of the Gold Coast SUNS’ brightest young talents ventured to Northern New South Wales on Tuesday and Wednesday, as part of an induction camp for first and second year players.
Based out of Surfing Australia’s high performance centre at Casuarina Beach, sophomores Peter Wright, Jarrod Garlett, Touk Miller and Adam Saad joined the 2015 crop of draftees and rookies on a two-day program; designed to build relationships and strengthen leadership capabilities.
Former player development manager and current Leading Teams Facilitator, Simon Fletcher, spoke on the importance of the camp to SUNS TV.
“We’ve got some behaviours and standards that we want the team to adhere to and their team trademark and this is an opportunity to put some of those things into practice without having the senior group here,” Fletcher said.
“Without having those senior, more experienced guys here it gives them (second year players) an opportunity to take some control.
“The other really important part is relationship building. Obviously we’ve got a new group of guys joining the club and this is an opportunity for them to form some really good relationships with those second year players who have only been through the exact same thing 12 months ago.”
Upon arrival to Casuarina Beach on Tuesday, the 13 players were split into two groups for an ‘Amazing Race’, with a series of challenges facing the young SUNS at nearby Kingscliff and Cabarita Beach.
Team 1: Touk Miller, Jarrod Garlett, Brayden Fiorini, Mackenzie Willis, Tom Keough, Darcy Macpherson, Cam Loersch
Team 2: Peter Wright, Adam Saad, Callum Ah Chee, Josh Schoenfeld, Ryan Davis, Jesse Joyce
VIDEO: Watch Team 1 complete their challenges
The challenges were varied, from teams navigating their way to Cabarita Headlands to take a group selfie and performing 50 soccer keep-ups to a river crossing on a stand-up paddleboard at Cudgen Creek Bridge in Kingscliff that really tested the players’ leadership.
Overall, there was less than a minute that separated the two teams, with Team 1 finishing in seven hours and 15 minutes, and Team 2 finishing in seven hours and 16 minutes.
VIDEO: Watch Team 2 complete their challenges
However, after time penalties were taken into consideration, Team 2 (eight hours, 53 minutes) were crowned winners over Team 1 (nine hours, 42 minutes). While competing against each other was one of the key elements of the camp, there was many positive outcomes from the day.
"Some of the key things were around competitiveness, the relationships and the ability to build trust with each other to allow them to have these genuine conversations around performance," Fletcher said.
