The club’s annual Community Camps sees the Swans dispersing around the state to visit schools and conduct coaching clinics.

Armidale and Tamworth were both selected to host visits, with Heath Grundy and Alex Johnson heading to Armidale and Jack Lloyd and Gunnedah product Sam Naismith dropping into Tamworth.

They will hit schools today after hosting Auskick clinics yesterday afternoon.

Around 30 attended the Armidale clinic and 25 the Tamworth session, following which the two Swans took the NIAS squad and some of the Farrer boys through their paces.

It’s Naismith’s third trip up for the camps.

The last two years he’s been in Armidale and said even in those two years he’s seen an increase in interest in the sport.

“I’ve noticed the last year two years the numbers have grown each year we’ve come back,” Naismith said.

“There’s a lot more people following AFL.”

His rise has no doubt contributed to that.

It’s a rise that saw him make his AFL debut last year.

“It was a massive learning curve for me,” the ruckman said.

He’s hoping to add to that one cap this season.

First priority though is getting his fitness base up.

“I missed a fair chunk of the pre-season before Christmas with glandular fever,” he said.

“Once I get my fitness up I’ll be ready to challenge the other ruckman.”

The Swans will head into the season with a fairly unchanged roster, having only lost one player from the side that played the grand final last year, and high hopes.

They’ve had a big pre-season, Lloyd said, and, as disappointing as it was, learnt a lot from last year’s grand final horror.

“We’ve come back bigger and better,” he said.

A midfielder, he also hails from the country.

He grew up in Horsham Victoria, and was drafted to the Swans at the end of 2012.

NIAS head coach Tim Cotter and skills coach Matt Hodge said it was great to be able to have a session with the Swans.

“It is good for the kids to see, especially at this level, it is possible to get to the next level,” Hodge said.

Having Naismith there further reinforced that.

Only a few years ago he was running around in the Tamworth competition – and dominating the rucks.

Cotter recalled coming up against him and trying to read where he was going to go knowing he wouldn’t be able to beat him in the air.

It was the NIAS boys’ third training session and rucking and roving were high on the agenda.

“We’ll use Sam and Jake to show what they specialise in,” Hodge said.

“It’ll be good to show how the pros do things.”

Naismith said it was great to have a development pathway for the sport, something there wasn’t when he was coming through.