While continuing to train during the AFL shutdown period, SUNS skipper David Swallow has also seen an opportunity to advance his leadership skills.

Maintaining high engagement amongst a list of 52 players has its challenges, but Swallow said the club’s leadership group had adopted a ‘divide and conquer’ approach to communication.

“We’ve split the leaders into groups so we can get a greater reach amongst the group and stay in contact,” Swallow said.

“I’ve been continuing to work on myself and areas I can improve. 

“I feel like the more I can get better as a leader the more I’ll be able to impact the club and group in a greater way.” 

Part of the strategy to keep morale high has been to implement weekly Zoom calls to catch up and set challenges.

With the help of Senior Coach Stuart Dew and High Performance Manager Alex Rigby, the players are in excellent physical condition, with Swallow confident they can pick up where they left off. 

“We’ve been catching up weekly in Zoom calls and have been doing group exercises,” he said. 

“We’re pretty confident in terms of the physical space that everyone’s going to be right to go. 

“We’re just excited to get back together and catch up with everyone again.” 

While the matches have been on pause, the SUNS co-captain also acknowledged the support from the club’s membership base during this challenging time.

“It’s been super,” he said. 

“We can’t thank the members and fans enough for sticking by the club and obviously in a different time.

“We’re going to need their support going forward as well so we can’t thank the members and fans enough for sticking with us.”