Following an opening day in Doha, Qatar, where Sydney Swans players Robbie Fox, Hayden McLean and Justin McInerney, CEO Tom Harley, AFL assistant coaches Dean Cox and Ben Mathews, general manager of the ‘AFL Football Leon Cameron and a handful of Swans football and administration staff. After visiting a selection of cultural experiences, players and coaches spent the second day of the Sydney Swans Study Tour at Aspetar and the Aspire Academy.

As part of the club’s partnership with Qatar Airways, Fox, McLean, McInerney, Cox, Mathews and Cameron toured the state-of-the-art facilities for an educational and learning opportunity.

Aspetar is one of the world’s leading orthopedic and sports medicine hospitals and McLean, Fox and McInerney have been put to the test with an experienced team.

“We did 2 to 3 hours of testing just to see how our body moves and you learn a lot about your body,” Fox said of the experience.

“You probably thought you were doing well in certain areas, and then you learn these little incremental improvements and they do little exercises, and all of that can make you 1 to 2 percent better.

“I just think the way they think about here at Aspetar, it’s almost like a performance enhancement and elite center.”

Cameron said the experience at Aspeter would be beneficial for the players and help implement procedures and learnings at the Swans.

“I think our partnership with Qatar Airways has been absolutely first class and since Calum Mills came here at the start of the year and worked on specialist treatments and techniques to improve his rehabilitation and some of the challenges he met with his body to come back and then play again,” Cameron said.

“Then our players have been put through some pretty rigorous testing over the last two or three days and just being involved in that and watching that first hand, watching that, taking it back and putting it on implemented in our soccer club will be beneficial to help our guys recover from injuries or to help our guys be stronger in certain areas so that they can ultimately play better soccer.

Cameron and coaches Cox and Mathews also visited the Aspire Academy, founded in 2004 with the aim of finding and developing the best young Qatari male athletes, while providing them with a high-quality learning environment.

“When we came through the Aspire Academy with Dean, Ben and Damian Raper (Head of Physiotherapy and Medical Services) were just exceptional. They go to great lengths to prepare their athletes, from under-13s all the way up to around under-19s,” Cameron said.

“Their football program and what they do in high performance and just building on that and understanding how far they go to help the athlete become the player they want to be was just a excellent learning.

“I think spending time with other organizations like Aspire Academy and watching what they do, it leads you to look at our QBE Sydney Swans Academy and then clearly our men’s program and our women’s program as well. There’s a lot of cross-referencing and there’s some really good people who have introduced us to their facilities and their programs and you talk about how we can implement that at our academy level and in our men’s programs and women.

“There’s no doubt that when we come back there will be a few little adjustments here and there, but it was a privilege to go through it yesterday.”

The day ended with a guided sunset yacht cruise, where the Red and White contingent viewed Doha from the water, before ending the night with dinner at Nobu.

Sydney Swans CEO Tom Harley said there were benefits and positives from the experience.

“There’s nothing better, especially in this hectic world right now, than spending time with people,” Harley said.

“We had an amazing harbor cruise, followed by dinner at Nobu, which was beautiful and there’s nothing like spending time with people.

“You get to know people on a different level and whether it’s on or off the field at the Swans, we clearly want to perform at the highest level possible.

“What hasn’t changed in a thousand years is teams that are well connected and have strong relationships and work well, so I think that’s been great.

Stay tuned to our social media channels and our Sydney Swans website where we will bring you daily tour updates, before a single tour diary is released in the coming weeks.