You know a wrestling session put Sydney’s troops through their paces when the fittest Swan in the early days of the 2019 pre-season says the hit-out left the squad “absolutely stuffed”.

Those were the words of Sydney forward Robbie Fox after the Swans had grinded through a physically demanding work-out aimed at improving tackling technique at Boxing Works in Forest Lodge on Tuesday.

Fox has continually led the charge in the running efforts over the opening month of the pre-season slog, but the 25-year-old Tasmanian was one of a number of Swans left gasping for air at Boxing Works.

“You get a massive cardio hit and you’re off your legs and off your tendons,” Fox told SwansTV.

“As you can see, the boys are absolutely stuffed, so it was a great hit.

“It’s not just the cardio factor of wrestling that prepares us for the footy season. Footy is a physical game and there’s a lot of tackling we have to get through. And our style of footy is very in-tight, so working on our tackles, getting that cardio hit and doing the body-on-body work goes a long way.” 

The entire Swans list is toiling through the second-last week of pre-season training before the Christmas break.

The 2019 pre-season marks Fox’s third as an AFL footballer, triple centurion Jarrad McVeigh is powering through his 17^th and Sydney’s seven draftees have laced up the boots for their first.

Captain Josh Kennedy has hit the training deck for his 13^th AFL pre-season, his ninth in red and white and his third as Swans skipper.

And Fox, when prompted on which Swan he’d least prefer to meet on the wrestling mat, laughed Kennedy would be right up there.

“I’d probably say ‘Joey’ Kennedy. You can’t even get your arms around his shoulders, so he’d be pretty hard to face,” Fox said.

“But even someone like Tommy McCartin just goes flat out 100 per cent of the time, so I wouldn’t even want to face Tommy.”