There was plenty of sand and surf, but the Canberra Raiders' beach retreat was anything but a summer holiday as the players were put through a gruelling NRL pre-season camp at Batemans Bay.
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Raiders coach Ricky Stuart put his squad on a bus and took them to the south coast to break the monotony of training at the club's Bruce headquarters.
The players swapped their boots for barefoot sand sessions to improve their defensive techniques and engage in some classic beach footy wars.
It left the players drained and exhausted, but second-rower Jarrad Kennedy says the Canberra getaway has brought the Green Machine closer together.
"Last year [pre-season] got a bit the same every week, so it was awesome to get away and do something different to breathe a bit of life into everyone," Kennedy said.
"It was our toughest week so far. The coaches call it a 'shock week' – build up to it over a few weeks and it's more intense before getting a week off as the carrot at the end of it.
"It was pretty brutal. It was stuff we normally do, but it was more intense and everyone had to be switched on, then you add in some sand sessions at the end of each day and everyone was just buggered."
Stuart has given the Raiders a week to recuperate as he joins chief executive Don Furner on a tour of some of the United States' biggest sporting teams.
Stuart, Furner, football manager John Bonasera and general manager Jason Mathie will visit three NFL franchises – including Jarryd Hayne's San Francisco 49ers – as well as universities and a Major League Soccer club.
But before they left, they laid more foundations to rebuilding the Raiders into a premiership force next year.
They broke free of their usual surroundings for a training camp where players started to learn the 2016 playbook and belted each other during tackling drills at Corrigans Beach.
Kennedy, who played 23 NRL games last season, wants to cement his place in the first-grade side and has set his sights on big improvements in the coming months.
"We didn't do any major bonding exercises, it was just hanging out with each other all the time and you're stuck with each other – it's a tight-knit family now," Kennedy said.
"We were still doing all our running and fitness, with defensive stuff on the beach to work on tackling technique. Blokes were smashing each other, it was pretty tough on the legs running through soft sand.
"It wasn't a beach that you lie around on or anything like that, but when it was hot we were in the water. It was our first full week as a squad to get into team plays, we had two teams going at each other to start to learn the style of play we want to use."
Kennedy, 26, made his debut in 2008 and is preparing to battle England international recruit Elliott Whitehead for a back-row spot.
"It's going to be a big year for me. I've had two pretty good seasons in the NRL with the amount of game time I've been getting," Kennedy said.
"But, obviously, I want to push further and harder to cement a spot in a tough back row. But everyone will train harder and stronger, it's healthy competition. We're going in the right direction. A bit of diversity in your training makes the passion for it even stronger. I'm excited to see what this next year brings."
