Cheeky bid for Kevin Sinfield perhaps? although highly unlikely, he's a great leader for Leeds and a top goalkicker to boot.

do you not watch briers during a game, the most natural leader in our squad

if i was a young lad i don't think i'd want to sign for wire there's a lot of bloody negative sod's in here.

Any chance of being positive getting behind the lads and having some positivity rub off on the team.

Nowt wrong with Moz, fantastic bloke and a good captain

I agree that the role is being overstated, but then I feel you rather overstate the importance too.

I wouldn't say that the captains role is to be a coaching mouthpiece, certainly not from a tactical point of view.

It is generally just someone who leads from the front and sets a good example. Morley does this just fine IMO.

I also don;t agree with the OP about nobody good since Gregory. Greg Mackey was certainly a good skipper for us.

Someone speaks sense at last! Look at some one the captains the the game currently and tell me one of these doesn't lead by example.

Cameron Smith
Craig Fitzgibbon
Steve Price
Roy Asotasi
Nathan Cayless
Jamie Peacock
Jason Demetriou
Kieron Cunningham

I didn't take that rumour seriously tbh, I just thought it was people putting 2 and 2 together with us having Smith, like, unless a bloody good insider confirms it, like LWF, then I shall be taking it with a pinch of salt.

Wayne Bennett reckons the role of captain is understated not overstated. In his book he says if you have a great coach with a bad captain, he's struggling...a bad coach with a good captain, he makes the coach look good.

What's people's opinion on whether a Captain should play in a position where he spends 80 minutes on the pitch ????

I would say the ideal situation would be to have a great Loose Forward as your captain. I know on a thread the other day I said I wouldnt sign any Leeds players but I still feel that Sinfield is a great player / Captain.

I am not doubting Morleys ability to lead but I do feel that the captain needs to be on the field for the full 80 minutes for most games.
Loose Forward gives you the toughness of playing in the pack but the skills / brain of a halfback / back and most 13's play most of the games.

I think we have been missing a real no 13 for a long while now. Purdham would do for me as he ticks most of the boxes.
Decent in play kicker.
Tough Forward who tries to not go to ground with the ball
Decent link player
Uncomprimising defender.
Bonus in that he can kick goals as well.

Shelford, Nikau, Forshaw and others have only been able to tick some of these boxes, Even Mike Gregory struggled in the kicking dept but we had good kickers through his time at the club, Hanley did ok without the ability to kick from hand. Purdham has the lot and would make a great leader.

Not worried about that. However he must be an automatic choice and arguably must be the best player in his position at the club (sort of the same thing).

That is what I was getting at really; the captian is an extension of the coaching on the field and acts as a mouthpiece. However what I was saying is overstated is this concept of a 100% all action shouty, talky type. I would rather all players acted with such leadership qualities.

Who are the 14 skippers in SL?

Of course you were lol, with Wayne Bennett confirming that the role of a captain is understated you then change track.



I`m not sure where you get this notion from that a captain is an extension of the coaching and acts as a mouthpiece, every player will know his role on the pitch, every player will know the set moves, every player will be aware of the game plan especially the key play makers and the kicker as they will have trained to it during the week, a captain will just remind players now and then what they have been doing all week and and to keep their minds on the job especially after a try has been concveded. His main role is a motivational one and to give his team mates a little confidence boost every now and then when needed especially after a mistake, they are like an aggressive version of a nanny on the pitch which is to look after their team mates.

If anything needs changing during a game then instructions are sent on via the water carriers or subs to the main playmakers and kickers whether they are the captain or not, the captain is there to lift the spirits of the team when things are not going to plan and to to give out praise when its called for, like i said above every player in the team knows the game plan, they know the set plays and the captain is their purely as a motivator ala Mike Gregory and many other great captains and motivators.

With due respect to some forwards, they are not the sharpest tools in the box so to overload them with too much info will have a bearing on their performance where they are not focused on what they should be doing first and foremost, i will stand by what i said in that a captains role is a very skilled one and you need someone who is well respected, has good player communication skills, someone who isn`t affraid to lay the law down when the team is underperforming and someone that leads by example.

As i said previously, Adrian Morley is not a big talker and he comes across as very reserved in that area and a player who just wants to get on with playing RL and doing what he does best. If Adrian Morley was potential captain material then why has he only been made captain of his country on just one occasion which was in an experimental side where he was one of the most experienced players on the pitch hence he was made captain.

Anyway this isn`t about Moz as his job to me is to be a front row enforcer and to lay the platform for our backs to have some quality field position along with the rest of our pack, the 2 teams that have been the most successful in SL in recent times have great captains that are not affraid to lay the law down and you quite often see them chatting to the refs during a game just to see what angle he is coming from with the decisions which was something Mike Gregory used to be great at, it gets a sort of bond between the ref and captain of a side.

How many times do you see Moz having a chat to a ref or laying the law down to our players ? Ive seen Moz get penalised and has simply run back into the line, thats fair enough for a normal player to do which shows good dicipline but when its your captain a friendly chat to the ref every now and then (and not a Briers rant and dummy spat) can go a long way in a game, Sinfield is a master of this along with Cunningham at Saints.

Anyway its just a debate and its good to have decent RL debates every now and then.

this is being addressed but it won't be sinfield.

God you really a neanderthal who is seemingly stuck in the 1970s and has got his coaching 'knowledge' from a Maurice Bamford book. Read the next sentence there is no change of track. You then go on and on about the captain being a 'motivator' (clearly your idea of motivation seems to be in proportion to how much they shout)when that is not as essential as being able to communicate what the coach wants the team to acheive, particularly if a change is requitred during the match itself.

Not very interesting ramble about talking to referees as well; you pick Sinfield out when he is getting a deserved reputation for whining unecessarily to the referee. Referees are only human and a player constantly getting in his ear would sometimes have a very negative effect.

And yes, to the more salient points raised by others, the captain should be on the pitch at all times and should really be a pivot player (ideally 6, 7 or 13) for the reasons I mention above about communicating the game plan.

You really are comical with some of your opinions, i can`t be bothered going into some of the dross you post like your Benji Marshall pearler.

Since you started to coach kids you have constantly come on here and talked down to people as if your some sort of Wayne Bennett of the junior ranks, nobody else knows anything about RL now that your coaching juniors.

Just don`t teach them the IMBRL way to play RL which was your grounding for RL as we don`t want the kids getting disolusioned with RL at such an early stage.

If it's an Aussie, there's not many 'leaders' out of contract. (I don't want to join in the 'what is a leader' debate, i'm going off who I think are sort of leader material in my head alone.)

With the above in mind, and your happiness etc, I'd have a wild stab in the dark at Darren Lockyer ?

Why would a leader/ captain be any better if he played the whole game ?personally i would of thought the opposite be true

Player comes off, watches game from different perspective, speaks to the boss, comes back on, relays information.

Granted any player can do that but coming from the captain will hold more wait with the players

I`m not sure how much of the NRL you watch JWP as ive not seen you comment on it much, a player that would solve our loose forwward problem (of which i believe we have one) and he would also be a great captain and a leader would be Alan Tongue at the Raiders, suprisingly he is still only 28 as he seems to have been around forever.

I`m not sure of his contract situation at the min (they don`t mean much these days anyway) but he is a player i believe would come to England at this stage of his career as his rep chances look probably over.

To tell you the truth Rob, until this year, I've watched it all, then this season I had a bit of mither with Setanta, so I'm trying to be stubborn right now, when the IPL starts, I'll give in you see.

I just thought Lockyer kind of fit the criteria for us really. We don't need the age debate right now, but he's been there, done that, would command respect etc, and Smith hasn't had a problem with age before McKenna, Dunneman, Bai, Millard etc. It just felt like the signing that Smith might see as a big piece in the jigsaw, with other pieces, English fellas, your 'kids' etc around it. Maybe not expressing myself very well here, I kinda know what I mean, it just 'felt right'.

I'll think about what I mean more in a little while.

Bradford - Paul Deacon.

Castleford - Ryan Hudson.

Catalans - Thomas Bosc.

Celtic - Jace Van Dijk.

Huddersfield - Brett Hodgson.

Harlequins - Rob Purdham.

Hull FC - Lee Radford.

Hull KR - Mick Vella.

Leeds - Kevin Sinfield.

Salford - Malcom Alker.

St.Helens - Kieron Cunningham.

Wakefield - Jason Demitriou

Warrington - Adrian Morley.

Wigan - Sean O'Loughlin.

At least half of them, if not more, I've never seen hand out a 'b-ollocking or what you might call inspirational speech'.

Oh the irony of you. You are the one starting a thread berating that the current coach and captain don't know what they are doing. And the basis of your argument is that Adrian Morley (one of the most successful British players ever to play the game) is not a good captain because he doesn't shout and wave his arms about and dishes out bollockings. Genius.

And FYI I have coached open age in NWC, youth, junior and school teams for over five years. Inevitably I must have learned something along the way.

(PS the Benji Marshall pearler was I said he looked like he was getting back to his best in the WC. Seems a very odd thing that you find so amusing).

For the avoidance of doubt it's not irony

The comedy of some of your posts holds no bounds, nobody has berated anyone on this thread as you put it, its in your own mind. Thats the problem with this forum sometimes, people put forward a debate and then quite often they will get branded as berating the club or players......

Its called debate, i have an opinion that Adrian Morley isn`t vocal enough as a captain and you obviously believe he can take us forward in that role, anyway most past GB coaches don`t agree with you, some of the best captains in the history of RL have come from the pivot positions and thats where i would prefer we had our captain at either 6/7/9 or 13.

I mentioned on another thread that someone like Alan Tongue is a great example of a captain, its just a pitty he`s been playing in a side thats been in a transition period for too long now and deserves better. Darren Lockyer is another of a captain thats very vocal and is a great example of a leader that takes his side forward, Cameron Smith is the same as was Andrew Johns. You won`t find many slackers that have played in the sides captained by the above names and got away without a verbal dressing down.

Anyway, ive said all i want to say on this subject.