The new breed of skipper
Rohan Connolly
The Age
March 19, 2005
Rohan Connolly looks at what makes a captain in the era of consultants and psychology tests for leaders.
In the rebuilding of Richmond that has gone on since Terry Wallace was appointed coach, few issues have consumed as much time, energy and resources as that of the captaincy.
Kane Johnson's appointment to the post this week was the culmination of a process not only exhaustive, but unheard of in AFL football only a few years ago. "We did so much work. Who knows? Maybe we went overboard," Wallace said.
The Tigers took on management consultants the Mettle Group to help them choose the right man not only to lead the team on the field this year, but a whole club through what Wallace hopes is a cultural as well as football revolution.
"They came in and said, 'What are you looking for in a leader?', and as a match committee, we all had different answers, so we went through 22 traits of quality leaders," Wallace said.
"They held up a flash card which explained what each trait is about, and we had to categorise in importance and rank them one to 22, so we actually got a much stronger opinion of what we were looking for.
"They took that, and then did some testing with the guys on who could actually deliver the sort of things we as a match committee were requiring."
The process took about one month, about 30 days longer than the same search would have consumed of any club's time only a decade ago.
Perhaps that increased diligence is beginning to unearth a new type of AFL club captain. Not necessarily the game-busting superstar such as Wayne Carey, James Hird or Michael Voss, but a man whose pure leadership abilities make him just as indispensable. Players such as Johnson, new Hawthorn skipper Richie Vandenberg or Sydney veteran Stuart Maxfield.
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Vandenberg's appointment led more uncharitable (and a tad optimistic) Hawk supporters to recall former Richmond premiership captain Bruce Monteath, who by the time he accepted the 1980 cup was only a borderline selection and spent the better part of the grand final on the interchange bench.
Monteath, who played 118 games for the Tigers over six seasons between 1975-80, was a handy West Australian ruck-rover dwarfed in terms of status by the likes of Royce Hart, Kevin Bartlett, Francis Bourke and Kevin Sheedy.
But by 1980, after a few leaner years than a great team had become used to, there were sharp divisions between senior Tigers and a younger emerging core. "I interviewed all the players at the end of 1979," said then Tiger coach Tony Jewell, "and it was interesting that all the young blokes in the side, like Dale Weightman, Terry Smith, Greg Strachan, who'd all played in a premiership in our thirds, all had the feeling the older blokes didn't think they were good enough. Funny enough, when we spoke to the senior blokes, they didn't really feel the young blokes had stepped up to the plate.
"The view came through that the side wasn't jelling, so we decided to try to move away from the Bourkes and Clokes and Woods, and have someone perhaps halfway who could lead the lot of them.
"Bruce was a pretty good player whose reputation suffered because he sat on the bench for the grand final, but even the story behind that shows what sort of captain he was.
"His form was terrible coming into the finals, and he had a bad ankle. We told him his position in the side was shaky, and he came to us and, rather than have us cop flak about dropping the captain, offered to say his ankle was crook so the press wouldn't make a big thing of it. That was why he was captain."
During Richmond's search for the appropriate replacement for Wayne Campbell, Wallace, besides the consultancy's view, polled his senior list, who each voted 4-3-2-1 for final candidates Johnson, Nathan Brown, Matthew Richardson and Joel Bowden, separate from a match committee poll, with all six members casting similar votes.
But Wallace also went back more than 30 years, to the successful rebuilding of North Melbourne in the early 1970s, for inspiration, reflected in the eventual appointment of Johnson and Brown, who have been at Punt Road only two and one seasons respectively.
"We wanted to make a whole change within our club, and we had a look at when Barry Davis (Essendon captain) and John Rantall (South Melbourne great) arrived at North (under the 10-year-rule, along with coach Ron Barassi) as team leaders. They had almost a whole culture change. I know it's 30 years later, but we sort of see ourselves in the same position.
"That wasn't saying that the Bowdens and 'Richos' weren't great people, but that just because people had only been around the club two years didn't mean they weren't the right leaders. Davis and Rantall hadn't been around North at all but had come from solid backgrounds.
"You might say Brown hadn't with the Western Bulldogs, but he was part of successful sides when he first arrived, and Kane of course played in two premiership sides (with Adelaide). We just thought it was an opportunity to change the whole outlook of where we were headed."
Johnson, says his new coach, sets an example "you'd want every kid coming into your footy club to follow". "It's just the manner in which he does everything, plays the game, puts his head over the ball when he has to, trains the house down, he's as good a trainer as anyone we have, he just does all the right things."
Of the four candidates for the captaincy, Johnson was the least "flashy" on-field, a trait Wallace notes in Manchester United's long-running success. "Look at the history of modern sport, captains like Mark Bickley (Adelaide) and John Worsfold (West Coast). Blokes like that you follow because you know in the trenches they're going to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I see Kane as that type of person."
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With Richmond's great captaincy search finally ended, Wallace is comfortable the Tigers definitely have the right man, and that the process has been worthwhile. "It's about the direction of your whole footy club . . . If you haven't got someone who is going to direct it from within the playing group, your core is going to be splintered pretty quickly."
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