After 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, Executive GM – AFL Football Leon Cameron and a handful of Swans football and administration staff visited a select cultural experiences, players and coaches spent day two 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 visited the state of the art facilities for an educational and learning opportunity.

Aspetar is a world leading Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital and McLean, Fox and McInerney were put through their paces with the experienced team.

“We did 2-3 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 fine in certain areas, and then you learn these little incremental improvements and they do little drills, and all that can improve you by 1-2%.

“I just think the way they think over here at Aspetar, it's almost like a hub of getting better and elite performance.”

Cameron said the experience at Aspeter would be beneficla for the players and aid in implementing produres and learnings at the Swans.

“I think our partnership with Qatar Airways has been absolutely first class and from Calum Mills coming over here early in the year and working on some specialist treatment and techniques to improve his rehab and some of the challenges he's had with his body to come back and then play again,” Cameron said.

“Then our players were put through some pretty rigorous tests over the last two or three days and just being involved in that and watching that first hand, looking at that and taking that back and implementing that at our footy club will be beneficial to help our guys recover from injuries or to help our guys be stronger in certain places so they can play better footy ultimately.”

Cameron and coaches Cox and Mathews also visited the Aspire Academy, which was founded in 2004 with the goal to find and develop the best young male Qatari athletes, whilst providing them with high quality learning environment.

“When we went through the Aspire Academy with Dean, Ben and Damian Raper (Head of Physiotherapy and Medical Services) was just outstanding. They leave no stone unturned in terms of preparing their athletes from under-13s all the way up to about under-19s,” Cameron said.

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

“I think part of spending time with other organisations like Aspire Academy and looking at what they do, it makes you look at our QBE Sydney Swans Academy, and then clearly our men's program and our women's program as well. There's lots of cross-referencing and there's really good people that took us through their facilities and programs and you are talking about how can we implement that at our academy level and men's and women’s program.

“There's no doubt when we get back there will be a few little tweaks here and there but it was a privilege just to go through it yesterday.”

The day was capped off by a guided sunset yacht cruise where the red and white contingent saw Doha from the water, before capping off the night with dinner at Nobu.

Sydney Swans CEO Tom Harley said there were benefits and positive aspects to come from the experience.

“There's nothing better, particularly in this hustle world at the moment, to spend some time with people,” Harley said.

“We had an amazing cruise on the harbour, followed up with dinner at Nobu, which was magnificent and there's nothing quite like just spending time with people.

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

“What hasn't changed in a thousand years are the teams that are well-connected and they have strong relationships perform well, so I think it’s been great.

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