Jones - Captain

..then it gets thin for a year or 2.

Dunn or Dawes VC, Grimes, Cross, Vince,

Let the young guys and the new guys wait a bit. Grimes just stepped down from captn. so leave him in leadership next year.

For me, the most important thing to address is our ability to lead in the last quarter, and yet lose games. That happened four times last year. Who in our list have the infield leadership skill to ensure that does not happen.

First of all let me say something about Jack Tregove. When he was fully fit, he was inspirational in that situation (think port at Darwin and his punch through for the winning point ). Sadly he will not be there, but in the long term, Trengove fully fit will be in our best 3 players and be an inspirational leader.

Now to next year. To me, the players capable of taking the team by the scuff of the neck in the last tight quarters are:

Captain: Nathan Jones

Vice Captain: Chris Dawes

Deputies: Viney, Vince, McDonald, Tyson

In two of our wins last year Tyson kicked inspirational goals. He is a potential a grader, and future captain IMHO.

Future leaders, from all reports are: Brayshaw, JKH (School Captain at Hailerbury, first indigenous Captain of a TAC cup side, scholarship holder at MELBOURNE uni doing Science - a born leader), Alex Neal- Bullen (by all accounts very vocal, and an inspirational leader on the field).

A legacy of Roos will be the leadership he has left the club. I think we are in very good hands for the future, far better than the last 20 years. We are very fortunate.

Edited December 6, 201410 yr by Dees2014

Its probably just me but ti find the whole thing about a leadership group as something of a joke. Its a wankk.

In anything, any adventure , any collaborative effort there will always be those that lead. They do this because its in their dna to do so and also in the dna of others to follow. This concocted version is something a HR idiot would come up with and those to scared to question will follow.. oh yeah...its marvellous ...etc Its rubbish

The only leadership required is for those that can to do and for everyone else to either emulate or perish.

We're in danger of trying to over engineer this game ( or most things for that matter )

A Capt and 1 or 2 VC's is still a 'Leadership Group ' just fewer participants. The quantity is irrelevant...we need players that can manage the on-field game.

With a single Capt like a Selwood, Hodge etc we probably wouldn't need an 'LG" but as we don't have that type of player, with the dna you speak of, the work needs to be shared around. Even Roos said last year he could do with more 'runners' because of the inexperience of his on-field leaders. The number of 4th qtr leads we surrendered last year would not have happened so often if our on-field leadership was stronger.

'...leadership...emulate or perish, you say'!! Sounds like the plot from 'Lord of the Flies'! And we know the anarchy that ensued!

Edited December 6, 201410 yr by Lucifer's Hero

I reckon Dawes had the co- captaincy right until the last game against North.

And then in the space of 15 minutes he officially lost the plot. He got reported for hitting Swallow, gave a 50 mtr penalty, and 2 down field free kicks. Then Roos embarrassed him by dragging him off the ground.

Although it may have been a one off, how could you be certain it won't happen again?

VC at best for Dawes.

i wonder if the sky would fall in if they had no leadership group this year, just capt and vc

then tell everyone to concentrate on football

there is enough bloody football department people these days to provide leadership or to go to when you need assistance

I reckon Brayshaw will captain this club.

Not next year though.

A bit surprised that no one sees Watts as a potential leader at the club. I think the players respect him, he's articulate and he strikes me as having many of the qualities that are needed in such a role.

The added responsibility would be good for him IMO. Same for Vince.

i wonder if the sky would fall in if they had no leadership group this year, just capt and vc

then tell everyone to concentrate on football

there is enough bloody football department people these days to provide leadership or to go to when you need assistance

It's an opportunity lost to empower players and to develop them as well rounded individuals. Good leaders within the playing group are more important than coaches. There, I said it. And that's coming from a footy coach.

I reckon Brayshaw will captain this club.

Not next year though.

A bit surprised that no one sees Watts as a potential leader at the club. I think the players respect him, he's articulate and he strikes me as having many of the qualities that are needed in such a role.

The added responsibility would be good for him IMO. Same for Vince.

The captain must above all else lead on the field. Watts is no captain!

I'm not in favor of large leadership groups, but with a young, developing team especially, I can see merit in having one or two officially designated leaders in the back half, forward half and in the middle. The leaders need to be highly respected (looked up to) by their team mates, consistent best 22, and able to take charge on the field whenever circumstances demand it. In short, they need to be an on-field extension of the coaching box, a la Hodge, Lewis etc at Hawthorn.

Given the influx of new / young Demons over the last couple of years, I'd like to see Roos and co. 'steer' the composition of our LG in what they believe to be the appropriate direction (rather than leaving its composition entirely up to the players).

Something like the following would probably fit the bill from the vantage point of my armchair: N. Jones ©, Dawes (vc), Dunn, Cross and Viney. Having said that, I wouldn't want to see stupid (counter-productive) acts from Dawes and Dunn, who have shown this type of indiscretion in the past.

Leadership groups are a load of crap

Jones captain, supported by a worthy Vice captain (Bernie, Dawes or Cross)

and then a leadership group consisting of the entire list supporting each other

Grimes and trengove are leaders titles or not, as are viney and tmac

It's an opportunity lost to empower players and to develop them as well rounded individuals. Good leaders within the playing group are more important than coaches. There, I said it. And that's coming from a footy coach.

players are all empowered to be good leaders in a football club, they don't need to be a "leadership group" to be leaders

as i said there are plenty of football dept staff to assist them in being "well rounded individuals"

Just win.

Who calls the toss matters little.

I reckon Brayshaw will captain this club.

Not next year though.

A bit surprised that no one sees Watts as a potential leader at the club. I think the players respect him, he's articulate and he strikes me as having many of the qualities that are needed in such a role.

The added responsibility would be good for him IMO. Same for Vince.

What defines a 'leader' in your eyes?

I think, for our needs and young and developing list, we need all our leaders to display an unquestionable desire and will to be competitive at every contest on-field. To fight nail and tooth for the ball and to be able to nurture and communicate really well with our younger players at the same time.

Our club has been completely bereft of leaders that display those two characteristics over the past decade and it has unquestionably been a contributing factor to our poor development of younger players.

Watts is definitely not what I would term an onfield 'leader' for our players. Perhaps he is a leader in other areas of his life and in his philosophy of life for some players and I have no question that he's respected highly within the group. But he is still trying to develop areas of his game that are on occasions non-existent during games.

We have a really exciting group of young players at our club and there's a theme building that they all share. An appetite to work extremely hard. The leaders on game day need to be players who can inspire our younger generation of:

Viney

JKH

Salem

Toumpas

Tyson

Brayshaw

Petracca

Hogan

Our leadership group for next year should read as follows in my eyes: Jones ©, Dawes (VC), Cross, Lumumba, Dunn or McDonald.

Even Dunn and McDonald are players whom I'm not completely sold on as leaders for my own reasons.

Unfortunately, there's a gap between our most senior and oldest players and our youngest group which comprise of players in the age group of approx. 24-28 who have endured careers that no player should have to go through.

The youngest group of players are the one's who will hopefully be developed properly. They're the one's who share a theme in terms of character and personality. And they're the one's who will be our next brigade of leaders. We need them to stay together and learn from our most well-rounded senior leaders which will hopefully be the one's in our LG next year.

Edited December 7, 201410 yr by stevethemanjordan

players are all empowered to be good leaders in a football club, they don't need to be a "leadership group" to be leaders

as i said there are plenty of football dept staff to assist them in being "well rounded individuals"

Bit surprised by the lack of importance placed on a strong leadership group. Demonland has discussed the notion of culture at length. How does a club develop a strong culture? It's certainly not driven by a coaching group telling the players what they will be all about. It must be player driven and a leadership group is integral to this. Young men are more likely to learn through the examples of their on-field leaders than the words, feedback, analysis and video summaries of their coaches. It's all important but I know which type of learning I've found to be most effective with this generation.

Edited December 7, 201410 yr by Goodvibes

The captain must above all else lead on the field. Watts is no captain!

Exactly, being articulate shouldn't count.

Not sure why Viney can't be considered due to age. He's a general barking orders and leading by example... Joel Selwood was VC at the cats in his 4th year then C the next year.

Exactly, being articulate shouldn't count.

Demonland is built on the same philosophy.

Not sure why Viney can't be considered due to age. He's a general barking orders and leading by example... Joel Selwood was VC at the cats in his 4th year then C the next year.

It's only Viney's 3rd year coming up and he is yet play at Selwood's standard.

Give him time.

Bit surprised by the lack of importance placed on a strong leadership group. Demonland has discussed the notion of culture at length. How does a club develop a strong culture? It's certainly not driven by a coaching group telling the players what they will be all about. It must be player driven and a leadership group is integral to this. Young men are more likely to learn through the examples of their on-field leaders than the words, feedback, analysis and video summaries of their coaches. It's all important but I know which type of learning I've found to be most effective with this generation.

Agreed. With the amount it gets drilled into us by respected coaches and players in the league on the importance of leaders and player driven standards, not sure how anyone could still dismiss it. If Roos thought as much, he wouldn't do it. He isn't one to jump through hoops. If Clarkson thought as much, he wouldn't have spoken of the important role the leadership group played during his absence through illness. If football people of their ilk deem it important, that's good enough for me.

What you speak of remains the club's toughest challenge ahead. Past decisions on the handling of senior players combined with widespread stunted development of our would-be leaders has had a significant flow on effect.

We can nail as many drafts as we like, with as much top end talent as we wish. What we continue to lack is a raft of quality players closer to the pointy end of their careers to help guide the youngsters.

This exercise is a perfect illustration. The midfielders most are placing in this group are Jones and Cross. That alone speaks volumes. Jones the sole hand for the past 3 years, and Cross the honest workhorse who we plucked from another club on the verge of retirement.

You can make an argument for Vince but with the ongoing setbacks to Trengove and now Grimes, once again it becomes a jump down to the younger players in terms of the likely types to lead the club forward: Viney, Tyson, Brayshaw, Kennedy-Harris, Salem, Neale-Bullen.

Petracca may have been nervous in his interview, but when he is asked which players he feels he can learn from, and the one name he comes up with is Christian Salem, it can be a bit of an eye opener.

Players like Brayshaw and ANB do come across as extremely confident, almost self sufficient, and that is clearly not by accident. But all players need hands on guidance in the early stages of their career, no matter what their naturally ability. Let's hope we have the resources to provide that.

I reckon Brayshaw will captain this club.

Not next year though.

A bit surprised that no one sees Watts as a potential leader at the club. I think the players respect him, he's articulate and he strikes me as having many of the qualities that are needed in such a role.

The added responsibility would be good for him IMO. Same for Vince.

'Good for him'?

What about the club?

And is being articulate the 2nd quality a leader should have, behind respected?

We don't need eloquence, we need intensity.

Intensity around contests, around the club, I would love Watts to be a part of that, but I know he isn't going to lead it.

It's only Viney's 3rd year coming up and he is yet play at Selwood's standard.

Give him time.

He is a leader regardless of his age and experience. I don't want to make him captain but his age should not stop him being in the leadership group.

Not sure the sceptics are saying we don't need leaders ... it's more that why do these leaders need "official" status apart from the top 2 or 3 who might have official status ... I'd like to see us have a capt, vice capt and a deputy vice and ... all the other players can aspire to those 3 positions - that system has worked perfectly fine in all sorts of sports for a long time.

All players can show leadership and/or lead by example ... even the 18 year old's. Who's to say that Petracca and/or Brayshaw can't step into that sort role right from the get-go.

We've had all sorts of leadership groups for the last 8 years and it's done us no good at all. For 4 years from 2008-2011 we often had a total of 7 or 8 players in the leadership group yet many of our players wouldn't go near a contest and we were correctly adjudged to be playing "bruise free" football for those 4 years ... in that instance, it could be argued that the leadership group failed miserably.

In my opinion, Joel Selwood didn't become the leader he is because of the culture at Geelong or because of the leadership group they had when he first went there as an 18 year old - he's a natural ... pure and simple. Geelong actually needed him to help show the way - not the other way around.

The other thing about these leadership groups is how the personel within these groups can change dramatically from year to year ... all based seemingly on the win/loss record. In other words, leadership groups are great when you're winning but if you're losing a lot, the club is deemed to have picked the "wrong" leaders.

Having said all that, we are going to have a leadership group so lets hope all these "leaders" can help us win a lot more games ... if not, will their places in the side be safe and will they get the gig again next year?

Edited December 7, 201410 yr by Macca

Bit surprised by the lack of importance placed on a strong leadership group. Demonland has discussed the notion of culture at length. How does a club develop a strong culture? It's certainly not driven by a coaching group telling the players what they will be all about. It must be player driven and a leadership group is integral to this. Young men are more likely to learn through the examples of their on-field leaders than the words, feedback, analysis and video summaries of their coaches. It's all important but I know which type of learning I've found to be most effective with this generation.

the best examples of leadership is how you play on the ground

a winning team always looks to be full of "leaders"

the number 1, 2 and 3 priority of a football club should be the focus on football

anything else is a lower priority and just a nice to have

i don't care how roundedly developed the players are, just that they win premierships

winners are grinners and its all about football

coaches are there to teach them about football and how to focus on being the best footballers they can.

this is not the job of the leadership group. totally over-rated and can be a distracting influence from the real job at hand

just another nanny state construct

the best examples of leadership is how you play on the ground

a winning team always looks to be full of "leaders"

the number 1, 2 and 3 priority of a football club should be the focus on football

anything else is a lower priority and just a nice to have

i don't care how roundedly developed the players are, just that they win premierships

winners are grinners and its all about football

coaches are there to teach them about football and how to focus on being the best footballers they can.

this is not the job of the leadership group. totally over-rated and can be a distracting influence from the real job at hand

just another nanny state construct

Well said dc go to the top of the class!