Admiring 10-Year Captain Nick Riewoldt

Recently the mighty Saints announced Nick Riewoldt as their captain for 2015. It is his tenth year as skipper, and Riewoldt will break the club record of the long serving captain which Danny Frewley had for nine years.

His milestone keeps going, and my curiosity of knowing about long-serving captains in the AFL has come up.

According to the club website, Riewoldt is expecting to play 200 games as captain in Round 19 against Fremantle this year. Like last year at the game with the same opponent, I have a strong hope that we will win over the Dockers to celebrate Rooey’s milestone.

Having read The Game: a collection of the best AFL Stories published by the Age, and Lenny: My Story, Nick’s strong leadership skills and loyalty to the club were built thanks to former coach Grant Thomas.

When I heard that Thomo introduced rotation of captains every year, I was surprised and thought it  unusual. But the coach tried to developed leadership skills in young players. Rooey was appointed as a skipper first in 2005, following with Lenny previous year, and followed by Luke Ball.

After Thomas had been sacked by the club in 2006, Ross Lyon was appointed as a senior coach for the Saints and the player group discussed with Rossy about captaining. As a new coach, Lyon had no idea who the captain should be. Then the player group agreed about co-captaining in where Lenny, Nick and Bally involved in.

Since Rossy’s second year of coaching, Rooey has been a solo captain.

Being a St Kilda supporter since 2012/13, I am always impressed with Rooey’s playing and leadership skills. He also has positive attitudes as well as good personalities.

In an interview at SEN’s Morning Glory program, Riewoldt mentioned that he was luck to play with our legend Robert Harvey and develop leadership skills with Harvey.

Sadly he cannot be a captain or player forever, but he can offer things for the club in 2015.

Currently, former Carlton player Stephen Kernahan has the league record playing games as a captain. Kernahan was a premiership captain in 1987 and 1995.

I wish Rooey could break Kernahan’s record, but he needs to captain until 2017. If he stays being a skipper, out re-building process would be slower. It is a shame, but I think Rooey needs to hand over the captaincy at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the club also announced its leadership group: Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna, Sean Dempster, David Armitage, Jarryn Geary, Jack Newnes and Maverick Weller are leading the Saints.

Rooey will help develop leadership skills in new and young leaders (Newnes and Weller), I believe, as well as will young blokes do their tasks with skills gained at the boot camp in Canberra.

Once again, I admire Nick’s brilliant services to the St Kilda Football Club and wish all the best to him and the boys.

Rooey is the loyal champion of the St Kilda Football Club. Go the Saints!