While some AFL clubs have travelled far and wide to gain the benefits of training in extreme heat, the Brisbane Lions players need only step outside their front door to be confronted with soaring temperatures.
Although Brisbane’s summer weather is highly unpredictable – you need only look at the recent storms for evidence – there is one constant…heat.
It can make pre-season training even more taxing for those players that aren’t used to it, but local products such as Dayne Zorko like to view it as a distinct advantage.
“We have got a lot of games at home early in the year and a lot of teams are going to have to travel to play in our heat,” Zorko told The Courier Mail.
“Hopefully we can get our season off to a really good start, execute our game plan and can carry that through the year.
“I know a lot of teams are trying to get into heat training these days and many travel out to the country to get some.
“We have 35 degrees up here nearly every day so we are pretty fortunate when it comes to that and we don’t have to go too far.
“I think that will hold us in good stead, especially for the first month of the season.”
Even high profile recruit Dayne Beams, who grew up on the Gold Coast, has taken some time re-adjusting to Queensland’s unrelenting weather.
“It's funny, my home is Queensland, I've spent so much of my life here, and when I first moved to Melbourne I always used to whinge about how cold it was,” Beams told The Age.
“But I've come back to the place I grew up and I'm whingeing about the heat. It's a matter of getting used to it again.”
Lions turn up the heat
Dayne Zorko says the Lions could benefit from unplanned heat training