The St George Illawarra Dragons’ NRL pre-season squad participated in an Army-style camp on the South Coast of New South Wales in early January.
Split into groups, the players were forced to undergo a series of tasks tailored to encourage selflessness among the squad.
Veteran forward Tariq Sims said that nobody surrendered over the course of the three-day camp which included a host of young Dragons players participating in their maiden NRL pre-season.
"There were a lot of challenges both physically and mentally but when things became hard all the boys solved it together," Sims said.
"It's exactly how we want things to work when we're back playing footy. That's what we were striving to achieve and what we were aiming to get out of the camp."
Basic luxuries were thrown out the window as the players went without any electronic devices or watches during the camp.
"Sleep deprivation plays a big part throughout the whole camp but full credit to the boys, nobody cracked," Sims said.
"We took [the camp] an hour at a time because we couldn't check in and see what time it was so we went old school."
