Our next skipper

[bluey_21]

its plainly obvious that cogs and lids are right up there in the running for future captains but that automatically discard everyone else?

Just because i'm pushing up Lids and Cogs don't mean i'm discarding anyone else. In my original post i did say that i though Tambling and Patto were potential leaders.

[Tiger Spirit]

Unless there’s a stand out, Clubs are generally unlikely to go for young (under 23) players as captains.  And even then many seem to want to let them have a few seasons in the game before giving them that kind of responsibility, which is fair enough.

As that seems to be RFC’s approach at the moment, of the current candidates, Joel Bowden is amongst the next most likely, as well as Nathan Brown (minus the injury of course).

Don’t necessarily disagree with that long-standing approach, but if we have to wait for the ‘perfect’ captain to suddenly emerge from nowhere, as generally seems to happen, then we could be waiting a while.  And whether anyone agrees with the way the Saints deal with their captaincy/leadership group or not, there are real advantages to it.  Grant Thomas, on radio the other day, said that if a player is already a leader then he doesn’t need to be in the leadership group.  Which is reasonable logic when the overriding purpose of any leadership group would be for players to learn about leadership, rather than expecting that the captain and club leaders are perfect leaders before they even take on the role.

To expect that a player needs to be ready made for such a role is mostly unrealistic.  Like most other things, it’s the sort of role where a player learns more from within it, rather than outside of it.  Instead, the emphasis on players learning and developing from being captain and/or by just being involved in the leadership group, as it’s not the sort of experience that can easily and readily be gained outside of that type of environment.

Which is why I’d like to see RFC adopt something along those lines, so that players can gain that sort of experience earlier in their career and don’t have to be nearly retired before they can be considered qualified enough to be leaders.

[Captain__Blood]

As that seems to be RFC’s approach at the moment, of the current candidates, Joel Bowden is amongst the next most likely, as well as Nathan Brown (minus the injury of course)..

Kane Johnson is 27. Both Brown & Bowden are also in this age group (infact Brown is older). I cannot see either of them getting the captiancy.

Why move it 'sideways' when Kane is doing a solid job? He is no Voss or Buckley but in a good team (Adelaide) where was the 3rd or so best midfeilder he was a top player. He seems to have lost some polish since comming to Richmond but his alyways leads by example giveing 100% and always being the first to put his head over the pill be it in the guts or off a HBF.

IMO Kane should keep the job for another 3 or so years if he continues to do well untill its time to move it to the 'the next generation' in a Newman/Cogs/Tuck  23/24 year old at the current type.

[Tiger Spirit]

Kane Johnson is 27. Both Brown & Bowden are also in this age group (infact Brown is older). I cannot see either of them getting the captiancy.

Why move it 'sideways' when Kane is doing a solid job?

I agree with what you’re saying CB and hopefully I’ve understood you properly.  But if there was to be a change any time soon, you’d expect the likely candidates to come from those already in the leadership group.  And, till now, the players in that group generally seem to have been more experienced, senior type players.  Based on that, why would we expect anyone outside of those players to get the gig in the near future?  I suppose some of that comes back to the ‘missing generation’ of players on our list.

People keep pushing up Cogs but, to my knowledge, he’s never even been in a leadership group.  Anyone outside of this group would first have to ‘earn their stripes’, you’d think.  How long that takes who knows.  Of the players that have been part of that group, Bowden and Brown seem the most likely, if there was to be a change in the next year or so.  Any longer than that and I agree they would probably miss their chance.

IMO Kane should keep the job for another 3 or so years if he continues to do well untill its time to move it to the 'the next generation' in a Newman/Cogs/Tuck 23/24 year old at the current type.

By then those players will be around 26/27 as well and it doesn't show that the current system has changed from what it is now, which is what will need to happen for someone other than Bowden or Brown to get the role next.

Going by MT’s post on the other thread, where Kane Johnson said that a second tier leadership group has been set up for younger players, hopefully that will help change things for the long term better.

In the meantime, while you don’t give the captaincy to someone for no good reason, the system to now seems to have been to wait for someone to be experienced/mature enough to take on the role, which seems to be around 27-ish.

Generally, a player should be in the best form of his career between say 22-27.  Before that it’s mostly a learning curve and after that it’s a levelling out phase in a player’s career.

Maybe that’s not always the case, but generally speaking that’s how it seems to work.  Based on that, and this is just my opinion, you would want a captain who is in that middle phase of his career to lead the team.  It’s not absolutely essential, but I just think that would be the ideal situation to be in and would more than likely indicate a well balanced list, which ours isn’t.

Because of our list, over the last few seasons, we seem to have had leaders in the later stages of their careers.  The list will take time to balance out, but the new leadership program for younger players could help speed up the process of developing leadership amongst that younger end of the list and maybe bridge some of the gap that currently exists in the middle part of the list.  Just my thoughts.