GIANTS head coach Adam Kingsley says his tight-knit squad is in a great position to attack the 2024 Toyota AFL premiership season after their gruelling summer on the track continued with the completion of their pre-season training camp.

Spending three days sweating it out in searing heat in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains region, the 2023 AFL Coach of the Year put his players and coaching staff through several gruelling challenges as they look to continue their rise up the ladder following a stellar 2023 season.

Speaking after three days spent hiking, abseiling and mountain bike riding throughout the Blue Mountains, Kingsley was thrilled with the results of the camp.

“The combination of hard work and a bit of fun is always important on these sort of camps. It’s been a really, really good camp and we’ve had a lot of fun but certainly a lot of hard work has gone into it,” he said.

“You struggle to find anything like this [the Blue Mountains] as close as we are in any city around Australia so for us to be able to jump on the highway and come up, a short drive, and spend three days up here we are quite lucky to have that opportunity and we’ve really enjoyed it.”

Kingsley said a highlight of the camp was a 25km hike through the region. 

“Spending six, seven, eight hours walking together and just having a chat, you feel a bit closer and get closer connections and it was really good in the end. 

“The Blue Mountain hikes are unbelievably stunning and for our players to be able to spend really the whole day doing that, seeing the views and looking at the beauty of the landscape was great for them and great for us, but it’s hard too.

“There’s certainly a few challenging uphill stairs that got the heartrate rising so it was really good and I think our players got a lot out of it.”

The second-year coach said the camp further exemplified his players’ commitment to push each other as they look for every bit of improvement ahead of the 2024 season.

“What we see from our playing group is that they support each other and they’re really prepared to work hard but they also support one another and help each other get through it.

“That’s what we encourage and I think that’s why we are such a close team and hopeful that can lead us to a lot more success.”

After a small break following the camp, Kingsley said it was then all systems go with the season opener against Collingwood on March 9 at GIANTS Stadium right around the corner.

“We get back and we’ll be three weeks from playing a practice match against the Swans [at Tramway Oval on Thursday, February 22) so the build-up really starts to increase.

“We’ll start to play games and quarters building up to that game, then we’ll get down to Canberra and play a practice match down there [against the Suns] which we are looking forward to and then we are into it [against the Magpies].

“It comes around pretty quickly but there’s been a lot of work go in, between when the players came back [on January 8] and now, and we’ve still got a little bit to go but I feel really comfortable with where we are tracking.

“As I said we’ve still got a little bit of work to do but we’ll get to work.”