For me personally I am extremely happy that the club took the expected step I guess, but some would call it a bold move. There are many fans that believe it is time to give Luke Hodge the top job. He is arguably the best player in the side, he has a huge on field presents and he is tough. The Hawks made the first step towards him moving to the Captaincy by making him a Vice-Captain. In fact co-Vice Captain with Sam Mitchell.
Hawthorn Football Club announced at its Annual General Meeting tonight that the Club will be captained in 2007 by Richard Vandenberg with vice-captaincy duties going to emerging leaders Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge.
Source: Official AFL Website of the Hawthorn Football Club
The Fact that there is a debate about this issue is an absolute massive improvement for the club over the point that they were at a few years ago when they where struggling to find a leader. Now we have a leadership group of Richard Vandenberg, Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge, Chance Bateman, Tim Clarke, Shane Crawford, Ben Dixon and Danny Jacobs. We also have guys like Max Bailey who are reported to be strong leaders. I saw Max at the Hawthorn Family day and in fact he was involved in the clinics that they held for the kids (that was a fantastic idea by the club by the way) and definitely stepped up and took control of the group of players and kids (which isn’t an easy thing with a bunch of 6 year olds).
The clubs future is in good hands.
What do you think? Are you happy with Vanders as Captain for 2007? What about beyond? When should Hodge (or Sammy) take over?
Molly
