Raiders And Afp Continue To Forge Strong Links
The CFMEU Canberra Raiders have continued to build their strong relationship with the Australian Federal Police, by conducting a three day training camp hosted by members of the AFP.
The Raiders have been put through a section of the AFP's management of serious crime program (MOSC), which has involved a three day journey of huge proportions, encompassing a wide variety of challenges and obstacles, which was focused on getting the players together as a team.
The program began on Tuesday when the Raiders embarked on a 30km hike through mountainous conditions in the South of Canberra, where players through the help of AFP guides were given a series of check points to obtain, before setting up camp in rain and dark after a grueling nine our session.
With only survival style ration packs for sustenance the Raiders continued into day two with some more hiking, before abseiling down a 60m cliff face, and then climbing back to the surface with the aid of AFP professionals.
The camp concluded on day three with a visit to the AFP's Weston training facility, where the Raiders made their way through the AFP training obstacle course, before a 7km run pushing a tractor tyre back to the AFP's Water Police base at Yarralumla.
From here the players were given a series of items including rope, tyre tubes, barrels and timber, where they then constructed a raft which they paddled to nearby Springbank Island.
As a reward for their efforts the players were ushered back to Raiders HQ by helicopter to complete the three days.
AFP Police Commissioner Mick Keelty was on hand at Water Police headquarters on Thursday afternoon to witness the final stages of the program, and commended the Raiders on a fine performance.
Commissioner Keelty said the link between the AFP and the Raiders was a strong one, and was part of a strategy his team had been working on with the NRL.
"It's important that we build a positive relationship between the AFP which is our community Police force, and the Raiders as our home rugby league side," Commissioner Keelty said. "It's part of a broader strategy that we're working with the NRL on. I've been working with David Gallop for several months now on building positive relationships between the AFP and the NRL, particularly dealing with issues such as drug taking and trying to get a positive outlook for players along the terms of looking at what players do not only during the season when they're playing, but also in their period of season and beyond football."
Commissioner Keelty said this particular program was a good way to demonstrate some of the initiatives that the AFP has implemented, which would hopefully lead to an improvement of the players as members of the community.
"What we've tried to do over the last couple of days is we've introduced the Raiders and their coaching team to the AFP's management of serious crime outdoor training exercise," he said. "The idea of the exercise is not a competition to win, rather a personal building exercise where you learn a lot about your own skills and abilities that you have as an individual, but also to try and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the other people they work with in order to operate as a team.
"The whole idea is to try and engender within the players a positive relationship with the police, and also learn a bit about themselves before the season commences."
Raiders Coach Neil Henry said the experience had been one that he was glad the team had been a part of, and thanked the AFP for their strong involvement.
"I think it's been an opportunity to take the players out of their comfort zone and in conjunction with the AFP we've done a fair bit of planning towards this exercise," Henry said. "We've forged a strong partnership there and it's given the players a tough environment to come together as a team."
Henry said he hoped to take a lot of what was learnt on the camp back onto the training paddock, and hoped the experience would bring the players and staff closer together.
"It's been a valuable team building exercise but it's also taught the players a few new skills such as navigation, map reading, abseiling and rock climbing and its been pretty tough out there. All up they've walked about 70km over the past three days so it's been a huge week," he said.
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