Oh Captain, My Captain......We need a Captain!!!

[tiga]

In my honest opinion I believe the thing that is holding our club back is the fact we do not have a courageous smart thinking captain with quality skills who leads by example.

One brief moment of sticking up for a team mate does not maketh a captain. Kane Johnson is still making fundamental handling errors and his decision making at times would make him unemployable. To see him go and slag off umpires and cop a fine suggests to me he doesn't think before he acts. The most frightening thing for me is that Sugar still appears in our "Bests" even though he makes regular fundamental mistakes that would have seen him sent to the VFL for a spell at any other club.

Believe it or not, I don't think we have a player in our present crop of senior players at this stage who is capable of stepping in and being captain which may explain why we are at the bottom of the ladder. Most of our senior players are struggling to improve their own skills let alone take time to lead and look at where others can improve.

Our younger players need someone to look up to, someone who says "watch and learn fella's". We need a Michael Voss type, someone who is hard as nails and yet has silky skills that the young kids can learn from. This type of player may be amongst our younger brigade but can we wait another 5 years for this to happen? We need to buy this type of player and soonish or we will be at the bottom for some time or at least until we can unearth this type of player from our younger crop.

Obviously these players don't come cheap and our existing senior players don't exactly whet the appetite of other clubs during trade negotiations so we may have to do the unthinkable and once again trade our early pics for a new club captain. I for one believe that one years loss of early draft pics would be worth it if we got the quality leader our club so desperately needs.

Saying that I would like to hear from others who they think we could buy to be a great captain for our club.

Obviously for me the first name that comes to mind is Chris Judd but there are others that I think would be good like Dane Swan from Collingwood, Daniel Cross from the Bulldogs etc...







 

[Mr Magic]

I honestly believe Joel Bowden is the obvious choice.

[Ox]

Captains who play on the ball MUST kick 3 goals a week.
Facy is,apart from Brown,we have(had) nobody with the ability to do it.

[mightytiges]

Believe it or not, I don't think we have a player in our present crop of senior players at this stage who is capable of stepping in and being captain which may explain why we are at the bottom of the ladder. Most of our senior players are struggling to improve their own skills let alone take time to lead and look at where others can improve.

Pretty much agree tiga on this tiga. Our senior players are or have been injured or out of form for most of the year (I thought Sugar and Joel were good on the weekend though) and even at full strength we can't get anywhere near the top sides yet as last year showed. Browny is/was our only true A-grade player so we just don't have the players yet. You struggle with a young side anyway. Too much left to too few and with the senior players down the workload goes not the kids who aren't experienced enough yet to handle it.

I've always supported the traditional idea of having one captain but given our situation and no obvious standout candidate it might be an idea to have 3 captains say next year as the Swans have.

Obviously these players don't come cheap and our existing senior players don't exactly whet the appetite of other clubs during trade negotiations so we may have to do the unthinkable and once again trade our early pics for a new club captain. I for one believe that one years loss of early draft pics would be worth it if we got the quality leader our club so desperately needs.

Saying that I would like to hear from others who they think we could buy to be a great captain for our club.

Obviously for me the first name that comes to mind is Chris Judd but there are others that I think would be good like Dane Swan from Collingwood, Daniel Cross from the Bulldogs etc...

Too expensive and the cost would be our future. Also what happens if Judd runs out first NAB Cup game and does a knee. We'd be totally stuffed then. You've got to develop your own A-grade champions. There are no short cuts.

We may be facing a situation of the cream of the current group of kids eventually forming the core in the decade to come and then the next group of kids who we haven't even drafted yet finishing off our list before we can seriously challenge. 

[WilliamPowell]

In a perfect world I am deadset against having multiply captains (actually who'd wear number 17 )

But I can see some merit in it with where we are right now.

I have a view on who'd I'd make captain and it is one of the younger blokes. He shows leadership on the field with his 1%ers, show leadership on the training track and can kick a wininng score for us


Anyone care to guess ?

Actually I don't like the idea of going out and buying a Captain but if I had a choice I'd look at a Stanton from the Bombers (I know he is youngster but I like the way he goes about it and he just plays like a leader - no fear), a Luke Hodge or a Daniel Giansiracusa

[Life goes on]

I hope you arent thinking Jay Schultz ?
He would make Humpfrey B Bear talk.

[retygas]

I'm with Mr. Magic here. I always thought when all this came up he was a shoe in for it. But merit was given to a outsider only cause he had played in a winning grand final. The Bowden family are Richmond, so you can see I was a little upset to see who got the job. 

[Stephanie]

In a perfect world I am deadset against having multiply captains (actually who'd wear number 17 )

But I can see some merit in it with where we are right now.

I have a view on who'd I'd make captain and it is one of the younger blokes. He shows leadership on the field with his 1%ers, show leadership on the training track and can kick a wininng score for us


Anyone care to guess ?

Actually I don't like the idea of going out and buying a Captain but if I had a choice I'd look at a Stanton from the Bombers (I know he is youngster but I like the way he goes about it and he just plays like a leader - no fear), a Luke Hodge or a Daniel Giansiracusa

Foley?

[mightytiges]

In a perfect world I am deadset against having multiply captains (actually who'd wear number 17 )

But I can see some merit in it with where we are right now.

I have a view on who'd I'd make captain and it is one of the younger blokes. He shows leadership on the field with his 1%ers, show leadership on the training track and can kick a wininng score for us


Anyone care to guess ?

Jack 

[WilliamPowell]

No it was Jay actually.

I keep hearing how we need some who can win a gmae of their own boot. Someone who has unlimited courage and someone who does the team things (the 1%ers) - Jay does all those things and personally I think he his far more vocal on the field than he is given credit for. As for speaking in the media - who cares it is the actions on the filed that are the most important IMHO

[Life goes on]

Hey WP. I can see where you coming from here but he isnt vocal enough unfortunately.
Chris Newman, Lids, even Foley when he gets a few years under his belt.
I have no problem with younger players being Captain, mail is that the blues will go with Gibbs after Lance

[WilliamPowell]

Hey WP. I can see where you coming from here but he isnt vocal enough unfortunately.
Chris Newman, Lids, even Foley when he gets a few years under his belt.
I have no problem with younger players being Captain, mail is that the blues will go with Gibbs after Lance

thanks Jack

you  mention Newman - I would never have a Newman as captain simply because his skills are like Johnson's. Foley perhaps... there is a big gap there isn't it

[mightytiges]

If we want our next captain to be a matchwinner I wouldn't rule out Blingers.

As for Sarge IMO he needs to add kicking a few ground level/running goals to his game before he gets close to being a matchwinner.

[tiga]

I've just added a poll to get an idea of who our first choice would be.

I'd have to agree with Ox that apart from Brownie I don't think there is another player at our club capable of being a Quality captain.

[Stephanie]

I went with Foley.
I understand what your saying with Jay though WP, so I'd have him as vice captain. There is no doubting that both boys put their body on the line, but IMO I think Foley would be a better leader