PORT ADELAIDE recruit Janelle Cuthbertson (JC) joined her new AFLW teammates on the Fleurieu Peninsula over the weekend for pre-season camp. 

Players and staff spent two days and one night at Victor Harbor, training, enjoying the sunshine and connecting as a group. 

JC gave us an insight into what the team got up to on the weekend away, and what it means to her to be part of the Port Adelaide family. 

Friday  
We kicked off camp on Friday evening where we met as a playing group at The Precinct at 5pm for a session with Port Adelaide board member, Holly Ransom. This session was focused around establishing as a playing group what our team values are going to be for season 2023 and as a collective, how our standards, behaviours and expectations feed into that. As a new player to Port Adelaide, but also someone who is new to learning about the rich history of Port Adelaide, I found this session incredibly valuable. Without placing too much emphasis on the previous season, I was able to get an understanding on what this looked like previously for the playing group in an effort to now look at how we can evolve this piece of work reflective of where we are now and what we want to achieve in 2023.  

With eight new players to the team, I was really impressed with how the whole group were really invested throughout the duration of the night (even with the lingering smell of dinner in the background at 7:30pm), respectfully challenging ideas, with some very brave and open and honest conversations. The group will continue to work with Holly over the coming weeks to continue to progress this body of work. It’s something that I am really excited to see come to fruition and will hopefully be reflected in the brand of football we want to play and how we carry ourselves both on and off the field. Wrapping up the session at about 8pm after some dinner, we headed home to get ready for a big weekend down in Victor Harbor.  

Saturday  
Saturday morning, we arrived at Alberton Oval for a really big training session! Noting on the schedule that Saturday looked to be a fairly big day and two things about me – I don’t like being hungry and I enjoy coffee far too much, so I decided to make a conscious effort to get up a bit earlier Saturday morning and cook myself a proper breakfast and allow enough time to find a coffee shop close by. Both of these decisions I was thanking myself for later in the morning!  

Arriving early at training, there were some noticeable differences in the demeanour of some players – a few individuals were bundles of energy with coffee in hand and a couple who maybe looked like they had just rolled straight out of bed and into the car still working through those morning blues. One of our crew may have slept through their alarm but we couldn’t be too mad – we’ve all been there! Thanks to the exceptional planning skills of (operations manager) Rachael Sporn and (player development manager) Amanda Sheldon there was enough buffer-time in the schedule to allow us to started on time. 

The girls finished getting prepped, some had a quick snack, a Red Bull here and there and then we got stuck into an education session delivered by (assistant coach) the charismatic Cam Sutcliffe around offence before hitting a pretty big 10 to 12km session out on the Alberton deck. Following training, the girls all went about getting some recovery food in – whether that be a protein smoothie, banana, yoghurt or chocolate milk. We then hit the showers to freshen up for the drive down to Victor Harbor. 

I was one of seven designated drivers taking a car-load down for the weekend. In my car, I had Lily Johnson, Jade De Melo and Yaz Duursma. Our car was pretty relaxed however judging by the Snapchats floating around, there were a variety of methods for girls keeping themselves entertained for the duration of the trip.  

Once we arrived in Victor, we gathered to watch the last quarter of the men’s match against Hawthorn, followed by a late lunch of sandwiches, fruit and other snacks.  

We then all headed back to the caravan park where we were staying and were able to check in and have a couple of hours of free time before dinner. In my cabin I had Juzzy (Mules), Sachi (Syme) and Georgie (Jaques). Juzzy, Sachi and I all opted for a little mid-afternoon cat nap and Georgie took the opportunity to explore the beach, go for a walk and get a bit of a study in.  

On Saturday night before dinner, we were really lucky to hear from decorated Australian cricketer Megan Schutt. This was a fantastic opportunity for us to hear about Megan’s journey and how she has navigated certain obstacles and challenges throughout her career. I was really impressed with Megan’s openness and honesty in sharing with the group and was personally able to take a lot out of the session with regard to self-belief, confidence and navigating life as a high performance athlete. Megan was really generous with her time as the girls came out firing with plenty of questions around being a high performing athlete, dealing with adversity and conflict, navigating expectations and social media and adopting the right mindset and attitude. Following Megan’s session, we kicked back for a really nice dinner. I went for the roast chicken and vegetables which definitely hit the spot after a big day, although I did get a bit of food envy look at Maddy Keryk’s bowl of seafood marinara across the table! 

All in all, it was a pretty big day on Saturday and a really productive day that had great benefit in bringing the group together.  

Sunday 
After a big day on Saturday, we had a bit of a slower start on Sunday morning. We were really lucky with the weather down at Victor all weekend and took the opportunity to sit out on the cabin patio early Sunday morning and enjoy the views of the beach on a beautiful morning. At 7:45, a couple of cars headed down to the local coffee shop for an early morning brew before heading back to the cabins for breakfast. Our dietician Georgia did a superb effort in making sure we didn’t go hungry for the weekend with a variety of breakfast options available to eat in the cabins – including toast, cereals, muesli, yoghurts and fruit.  

Following breakfast, we made our way to Victor Harbor Football Oval for a very light session which was predominantly made up of light-hearted, yet always competitive skill games. After a big track session on Saturday, this was mainly about getting our hands on a footy, low volume activity but lots of laughter and good energy amongst the group. If you have seen the camp day 2 video, you may have noticed some questionable and maybe intentional flopping for a bit of air time…without naming names….(Gemma).. thankfully no injuries were sustained in the making! 

A really important part of the AFLW and representing Port Adelaide is connecting with the fans and the community and we were really lucky to have some families attend and hang around after training. All the girls spent the time interacting with the young girls and boys, signing autographs and taking photos.  

Post-training, we had some free time before we were due to pack up and make our way back to Adelaide. Some girls opted to head back to the coffee shop at Victor and chill, some took the opportunity to do some study, and some chose to hang around the caravan park before the big camp finale at 2pm at Zone Bowling at Westbourne Park. 

We finished camp with some fun tenpin bowling, laser skirmish and a couple of arcade games. We were split in teams for bowling with a mix of staff and players in each team. It was safe to say Juliet Haslam definitely carried our team with her natural athleticism nearly clutching the win for our team, but we narrowly fell short at the end. I also found out pretty quickly that I was no good at laser skirmish, maybe because I was like a bull in a china shop trying to make my way around the place or maybe it’s just not suitable for tall people because every time I turned a corner I was fronted out of nowhere by either (strength and conditioning coach) Mitch Bailey, Laquoiya (Cockatoo-Motlap) or (list manager) Naomi Maidment – either way I think I spent about 90% of the time de-activated! 

That wrapped up the weekend’s activities and week one of pre-season. Personally, I was really grateful for the time that was spent by everyone involved to plan the weekend which provided the opportunity to get away with the group early in pre-season and spend time with players, coaches and support staff to continue to get to know everyone and build the connection both on and off the field. The energy among the group is really high and I know that everyone is really excited to continue to put in the hard yards over the coming months and make the Port Adelaide family proud.