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Captaincy

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MUYB

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I think the club needs to take a long look at the situation at the end of year. Do they risk damage to the club culture(what little there is of it) by replacing Grimes and Trengove for next year with Jones, or do they continue along their current path.

I think that if the captaincy was made vacant today, it would be pretty clear to everyone that Jones should get it. Grimes hasn't been his best, but has been passable, Trengove looks like he is playing injured the whole year.

Both courses of action present risks. Making Jones captain for next year could set up the impression of a revolving door policy having five captains in four years. I'm not sure where I stand on the issue to be honest.
 
No chance of a change. Trengove or Grimes would have to do something extremely rash and dim-witted off field, and neither of them will do that in a month of Sundays. It's a long term thing, they will see it through.
 
If we give up on these guys while they are still finding their feet we will set ourselves back further. Captains aren't made overnight, they're built, it takes experience to be a good captain. But you don't get that experience unless you do the hard yards at the start. These captains will be built over their careers which they are at the start of. In two or three years no one will be critical of these captains because they will have learned how to do the job. Have patience.

Also 'culture' is a meaningless buzz word which can be thrown around to make a lazy argument without anything to back it up with.
 

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Also, the idea that the captain has to be your best player is completely incorrect. Harley was a gun captain, but only a decent player. Maxwell is the same. Chris Newman another. Just because Jones is going to win the bluey by a mile doesn't mean he should be captain. Grimes, for mine, is an excellent selection. Good enough on the field to do the inspirational stuff when required, but clearly possessed of a brain and social skillset that puts him in a great position to support and nurture a team around him. Jones is playing well, trains hard, and does the right things, but he doesn't strike me as a thinker. Moloney wanted the captaincy too, and a bunch of people called for it after his performance last year, but imagine what a disaster it would have turned out to be given his output this year. If you pick a guy to be captain just for what he does with the ball in hand, he's only one bad game away from losing his credibility.

You pick a guy for the captaincy because he's a leader of men... then it doesn't matter (as much) what he does with the ball. I'd rather see Jones unconcerned with leading the club off the field, so that he can continue to lead the club on the field.
 
I don't think Jones is captain material because he is our best player. I think it's because he is the only player who has played 100 minutes of hard football every time he's stepped onto the field this year(actually Clark probably qualifies too). He never stops going, he is at the bottom of every pack, and he is the most inspiring player on the list by a mile for mine.
 
That's a fair point, but I'm not sure you could say that about trenners or grimes with confidence yet either. They certainly could be, but I think they're a developmental project, which I reckon captaincy is too important a thing to do with. I think it reflects on the fact that Neeld made the decision without having coached a game, that the players he chose are arguably the hardest and most committed on the track, and professional off-field. Hopefully at least one of them transitions into being the leader we need, but it's a massive ask for a pair of kids 20 and 21 years old to be able to lead men.
 
Grimes and Trengove are still in their developing years, they simply shouldn't of been named captains but it would be pretty harsh to drop them after one year. It would of been a good learning year for the both of them. They were only named captain because there were no stand outs so maybe Melbourne should go on a rotating policy for a few years, 2012 Trengove and Grimes, 2013 Jones and Clark, 2014 Watts and Frawley. so in 3 years we have 6 young guys share the captancy to build leadership around the club and by 2015 someone will emerge as the true leader and captain of the club.
 
I'm not sure you could say that about trenners or grimes with confidence yet either.
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I agree, and from the outside we'll never see most of the things that I would class as important in a captain - the way he speaks to an injured player, the way he supports someone outside the best 22, the way he treats the "wayward gun" (like a Sylvia). We only see what happens on the field and the media work, so my opinion about who should be captain is just as useless as yours or almost anyone else on this board. That said, I rate "social intelligence" as extremely important in a leader, and from the media work I have seen from Moloney and Jones, neither of them have it.

Grimes and Rivers, on the other hand, appear to. I've thought for a while that for tactical reasons, the best person to be captain on the field is a loose defender with the play in front of him (like Harley and Maxwell), and thus if it had been me picking the captain for this year, I'd have gone with Rivers. Given what has happened, and the way Grimes is proving himself capable of standing up on the field even in the face of pressure of captaincy, we leave things as is for next year. Trenners doesn't seem to have coped as well as Grimes, but given their youth I think we're best with co-captains until Grimes is truly a leader on his own. If we win a flag within a decade, I imagine Grimes will be our captain, and hopefully held in the same regard as Luke Hodge by that time.
 
I'm not really convinced on the captaincy being the thing weighing trenners down this year. The biggest problem is how slow he looks. Hopefully someone from the coaching staff takes him aside and tells him to slow down a little on the track over the pre-season to really heal back up.
 
Someone else might have mentioned this, but it's all TL;DR.

What Jones gives in effort every week should be the standard, not the exception that deems him captaincy material.

Grimes has been fine, Trengove will get there.
 
Grimes is a prototype captain in every way. Hard, honest and plays 4 quarters. Good player and a good extension of the coach which is part of the role of a skipper - they are the coaches' voice on the field. In this regard Moloney has shown why he didn't get the gig.

Trenners should improve in form next year, the hardest should be behind him soon and I can see him being the VC.
 

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Can't see any changes happening here. Both captains have been carrying the team this season, another preseason into the rest of the list and another couple of good players whether through trade week or the draft will ighten the workload considerably. I also think Grimes has been up there, will definately be in the top five come Bluey time, though I agree Jones has it all but sown up.

Jones is a great leader in the 'follow me' mould, but doesn't come across as confidently off the field as Grimesy and Trenners.
 
They will continue on with this pair, for mine Grimes has been really good this year and unfairly gets dragged down with Trengove when their form is mentioned. Trengove has had a poor year, whilst grimes has played the most games in a single season and possesion avg is in line with the last 4 years, even better achievment this year considering how crap we are and how little of the ball we get. In hindsight Jones and Grimes would of been a better pairing. Jones being mentioned as captain is not just becuase he is our best player, but the way he goes about it on and off the field. He is always trying, just live Grimes and Trengove do, but alot of ther don't.
 
Jones should be our captain, they won't change it though.

Grimes is ok as a captain though, was a Dees supporter and has big ones.
 
MUYB said:
I don't think Jones is captain material because he is our best player. I think it's because he is the only player who has played 100 minutes of hard football every time he's stepped onto the field this year(actually Clark probably qualifies too). He never stops going, he is at the bottom of every pack, and he is the most inspiring player on the list by a mile for mine.
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i think you are being pretty harsh on Grimes. Will finish top 3 in the b&f, probably 2nd
 

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