St Kilda GM of Football Performance Jamie Cox believes the Saints are well placed to appoint a successor to the captaincy throne, with a handful of middle-aged players all putting their hand up for the role this pre-season.
With Saints champion Nick Riewoldt - St Kilda's longest serving skipper - relinquishing the captaincy duty at the end of last season following 11 years in the position, the club is set to announce his successor in the not too distant future.
Experienced leaders Jarryn Geary and David Armitage, triple Trevor Barker Award winner Jack Steven, and younger leadership group members, Jack Newnes and Mav Weller, are all considered captaincy options.
“We’re actually really lucky at the moment to have a lot of good young players that have all come through at a similar time and who have all put their hand up and all have real strengths to put their hand up for the captaincy,” Cox told SEN.
“When you’re actually transitioning a champion and someone who is so well respected in the role, you want to try and get it right and you want to make sure the process is done the right way.
“We’re going through that at the moment; we expect to have an announcement for that in the near future. We’re really pleased with how the process is rolling out and we’re really confident that we’ll have a really strong replacement for Nick.”
As the Saints embark on a new era without Riewoldt steering the ship, Cox said the club still has plenty of experienced, wise heads on deck to help the new skipper sail smoothly during this transition.
“You can probably put Sean Dempster, Sam Gilbert in that mix as well (with Leigh Montagna); we’re lucky to have those experienced players who hopefully still have a lot of football to play for St Kilda,” Cox said.
“They won’t lead any differently, they won’t lead any differently, they will be very strong contributors on and off the field for the Saints.
“As Nick has suggested previously, it’s been identified that our growth will come from some of our next layer of players stepping up and taking the reins and really stamping this football club as theirs.
“Whilst we’ve got Nick and ‘Joey’ and Sean Dempster and ‘Gilbo’ there, it’s a luxury to have them sitting in the back seat and overseeing the leadership development of this fine young group coming through.”
