To see Sydney at the boxing session...

The Northern Ireland man said the players and coaching staff had pencilled in an unbeaten three-game start to the campaign as their initial challenge and having achieved that was a great psychological boost.

McFlynn and his colleagues were put through a tough boxing session this morning by Les Motto at North Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club with the midfielder showing he packs quite a punch.

At one point during the session Les (who used to put John Kosmina through his paces as a player) grabbed a fire extinguisher and yelled ‘Terry’s on fire’ as the midfielder punched away.

Thankfully all the punching was into the gloves of a colleague and no-one was left floored on the canvas - John Kosmina has enough injuries to worry about.

Once the sparring was over for the morning, an optional dip in the ocean was on the menu although there were few takers.

After the gloves were off, McFlynn told au.fourfourtwo.com: “It’s good to get down here and have a blow, it’s something different and something the boys really enjoy.

“Variety in training is very important. You don’t want to be doing the same things day in and day out, it can become monotonous and there’s the risk that it could show in aspects of your game, that you become a bit stale.

“In the early part of the week we did a lot of work on the pitch and we did a lot of hard running yesterday.

“We set targets, as you do at the start of every season, and our first minor target was to go into the break unbeaten and we’ve achieved that.

“Now it’s a chance to get a few injuries out of the way and it gives the likes of Poppa (Tony Popovic) and Johnny (Aloisi) back. I think the break has come at a really good time for us and going into Newcastle next week we’ll have people back fully fit.

“When you’re getting results you’re happy. Collectively as a group we’ve talked about certain aspects of the game we can improve all over the park. As a professional you’re never totally satisfied, but yes we’re happy with the start.”

Boxing trainer Motto added: "I used to train John Kosmina when he was a player, so when he moved down here, he got in touch.

"It builds up the aggression levels in the lads and gives them a bit of mongrel which is what Kossie wants."

To see Sydney at the boxing session...