Like many of his young team mates, Tom Downie has just packed his bags, moved to Western Sydney and spent his first ever week on the training track as a GIANT.
In his second week, Tom will be offering some insights into what it’s like to join the newest club in the AFL.
Each day, Tom will give us a behind the scenes look at how the newest GIANTS are preparing for their first season in the AFL.
About Tom Downie
Tom Downie is a ruckman from the North Ballarat Rebels.
He represented Australia in the World U17 Basketball Championships in Germany 2010 before playing football for St Patrick's College Ballarat this year, then joining the Rebels at the end of the season for two matches, averaging 13 disposals and showing outstanding natural talent.
The GWS GIANTS selected Tom with pick number 56 in the 2011 NAB AFL Draft.
Day One:
Today was pretty tough.
Last week when we came in to the club, we had a lot of adrenaline pumping. There was a lot of excitement about being part of an AFL club for the first time, moving in to our apartments and meeting new people. I think that kept us going.
This week felt like we were heading in to the hard slog.
Training has become tougher.
We ran the sand dunes on Saturday and I think that was one of the toughest things that I’ve ever done in my life. The session was long and hard.
My body is sore so I’m going to head to bed early tonight to prepare myself for tomorrow.
Day Two:
I woke up in my new apartment at Brekkie Point this morning, pumped for another solid day of training. We kicked off with an intense practical strength session at 10am.
Here are a few things that I noticed during the day:
- Chad Cornes always has his rig out
- Our line meetings all ran smoothly which gave us a bit of solid team bonding time at the end
- Callan Ward needs to work on putting his handbrake on so his car doesn’t roll away
- There was a lot of excitement in the kitchen amoungst the boys today because our pancake machine arrived
Day Three:
Today we trained at Gipps road oval, which is about 20 minutes from Blacktown. We had a solid whole ground session and you can really notice the younger boys starting to blend in with the group now.
Two constants are starting to come out this week. Number one, Chad Cornes always has his rig out and number two, Phil Davis always manages to see the lighter side of things and make you laugh.
After training the young boys were first in the gym rotation. We busted out a solid weights session before brushing up on our computer skills in the afternoon.
The training load is really hitting some of us hard and Toby Greene and Will Hoskin-Elliott struggled to keep their eyes open during our computer skills session.
The team dined out at the Palace hotel for dinner, I ordered the steak with mashed potatoes and veggies - quality.
Thursday was a quieter day at training, which gave everyone a good chance to recover.
The two most interesting parts of the day were the beginning and the end. We started the day with a water run at Cabarita pool. It was raining so heavily that I thought I might actually drown at one point.
We ended the day by heading to the NBL to see the Sydney Kings in action (thank you Dean Brogan) and the game came right down to the wire.
I grabbed a ride with Cal Ward to training at GIPPS road this morning. It was a solid session to start the day.
From there the draftees were lucky enough to have gym straight away which means we didn’t have to hang around and wait. We spent a good hour in working on our lower body before jumping in the ice baths to see the day out.
The rest of the day was free which meant that we could head to Burwood and do some shopping.
When it came to dinner, we were lucky enough to be eating at Nui Dui in Concord so we put our raw cooking skills on hold for another night.
We only had one more training session left for the week, but it certainly wasn’t going to be the easiest!
By this stage of the week, a lot of the boys were feeling pretty exhausted but since Saturday conditioning sessions are always the hardest, you have to give it everything you have left.
A visit to Bicentennial Park on Saturday morning drained many of the boys physically and mentally. One of the hardest things is the repeat effort, drill after drill you just have to keep picking yourself up and trying again.
After the morning session, we all went to Cabarita pool to wind down and begin our recovery for Monday.
