Prompted by a number of posts that say 'such and such is not a good captain', who do you think has been a good Wire captain and what qualities do he bring?



Was Morley a good captain because he led from the front? But you rarely saw him remonstrating with players on the field after they made a mess of things.



Or Briers who often roasted players behind the sticks with arms gesticulating?



I was pleased that the captaincy was removed from Chris Hill because it took pressure off him and allowed him to concentrate on what he did best.



Or is it more about what goes on in training and the match is just the tip of the iceberg so we as fans don't get a complete picture.



I don't think I've seen a complete captain to be honest but would like to hear others views.

In my time watching Wire, the greatest captain by a long way is Mike Gregory.



Despite being from Wigan, He fully appreciated playing for the club, was a superb player and, as a captain, led by example with his performances and his whole demeanour on the pitch.



If you could bottle the ideal RL player and leader, there would be a whole lot of Mike Gregory in it.

Yes - he came to my mind when writing this, but I didn't see enough of him to form a well founded opinion. He was injured for much of the time I started watching and when he came back wasn't at the same level as he had been.

The Mike Gregory of the 80's, upto the 1990 CC final, walks into ANY rugby league side.



And he could probably be a suitable leader for any RL side too.



Looking back, that pack that won the Premiership in 86, was probably the best balanced pack I've seen play for Wire - it had everything, pace, power, aggression, great defence, fantastic attacking threat and some superb ballplaying ability, of which Mike was one of the best - He had all those named attributes.



Imagine Sean O'Loughlin and then go to another level up.

To answer your first question, I'd say:



Leads by example

Can inspire with words

Great communicator

Knows when to encourage

Knows when to criticize

High expectations of him and the team

Keeps standards high

Acts as a bridge between players and coach

Rises to the big occasion and is fearless

Stands up for the team

Knows where the line is and keeps a cool head

Can manipulate referees

Expert at the dark arts

Takes responsibility

Is decisive



The closest to ticking all those boxes is probably Sinfield. As for Wire players, Briers had a lot of the communication parts of that list and Morley had the inspirational side. Don't think we've come close to having the full package in the last 15 years or so.



And looking at that list, how many boxes would Hughes tick?

I think Farrell has to be up there. Ticks the the same boxes as Sinfield except that he had much better influence in rollocking his players when the chips were down. He was the one who boosted Wigan to snatching victory when it looked like they’d have an unlikely defeat during their glory years.



What I would have given for a Farrell type character in that Price team. We could have won the GF a couple of times.

Liftin Trophies



Ned

I'd Say Cooper and Widdop would be my choice for Captain and vice captain. But i don't know any of them and don't see what they do behind the scenes, so i'll just leave it to Powell

Precisely.



I never got the plaudits given Sinfield as a player. Don't get me wrong, he was an excellent SL player, but not to the levels we're led to believe.



[size=150HOWEVER[/size, as a leader of men, he's untouchable. An inspiration to his team and fans, and is the main reason for Leeds' success for the last two decades. Without him, Leeds don't win half of the stuff they've won. Typical example, their title of 2011. Leeds were nowhere by May. Yet, with his (and McDermott's) influence and inspiration, they dragged themselves up, and won SL (beating the best Wire side of my watching lifetime in the semi, along the way). His selflessness shown towards his mate Burrow, exemplifies this.

Farrell, I'll allude to, too. Maybe throw a Shaun Edwards into the equation, as well.



Looking at our current playing roster, we have no one within a million miles of his attributes. Just a collection of players with varying abilities.



As for our past captains, DSM sums up Mike Gregory perfectly, and Morley was a great leader for us, just not in the Sinfield mould, though.

I think the fact that there are so few names mentioned shows how difficult it is to be 'right up there'.



In some ways a cricket analogy would be Mike Brierley.

A good batsman, but not world class, but in my view one of the best captains there's ever been. He really understood the game and how to get the best out of the team.

I don't think the Brierley analogy would translate to RL. There's more scope for a captain's decisions to make a difference over 5 days in a slower paced tactical game like cricket than in 80 minutes in RL and you can't hide a 'passenger' as easily in RL either. Brierley was fortunate that he had Botham at his peak and a very good England bowling attack.



Jack Napier has covered a good list of qualities above, and I also like lefty's analysis of Sinfield. I think Sinfield v Sculthorpe is a revealing comparison. Both are probably regarded as really good captains and Sculthorpe was the better player and very much a 'lead from the front' type, but I think Sinfield was the better captain, I think he's the best captain in SL history. Almost like having a coach on the field. One thing I always really noticed with Sinfield was how focused he was and how undistracted he got by stuff going against him. Bad refereeing decisions, making mistakes, Leeds conceding tries, he always had this sense about him that he was in control and knew how to get it done in the end. I think it transferred to the whole team too which is why a number of times Leeds had messy regular seasons and went through long lapses in form but you had the sense that neither Sinfield nor his team was bothered and they still knew they would get it together when it counted.



I think there's also something about being a clear communicator and having more to offer than just shouting or appealing to 'passion'. I remember hearing Mal Reilly talking about the night before the Grand Final when he was Newcastle Knights coach, and several senior players had been making speeches about how guys should realise they might only get one shot to play in a GF, make it count, lots of appeals to passion and brotherhood etc. Then it came to Andrew Johns turn to speak - Johns wasn't captain yet and was only in his early 20s at the time - and he was struck by how clear and focused on the practicalities Johns was: basically giving a few key messages about what he would do on the field and what the others needed to execute around him and if they did that they would win.



The ultimate captains have a kind of aura around them and stand a bit above their team. The Aussies are good at producing these - Wally Lewis, Mal Meninga, Brad Fittler, Darren Lockyer, Cameron Smith. They played with a load of other great players but there was no doubt around their elevated status as leaders.

I agree about Sinfield but he also had Jamie Peacock and Danny Maguire who would have been worthy captains. Never mind Beep Beep. Plus Ablett and JJB who would have been crucified by Wire fans but were the glue in those Leeds teams that held it together whilst the stars shone.

Which is why they were such consistent winners and also why I never fully bought in when people used to say Wire had the best squad back in 2010-12. We had a great team but we didn't have the on field leaders that Leeds had.

True, Sally, but we definitely had the better side/squad.



Leeds had the one word that we didn't, and I've used it several times before......battlehardened

We played 4 big games with Leeds in that era and it was 2 wins each, but the revealing thing was how different the match up felt when we played them in daylight in August at Wembley compared to nighttime in Sept/Oct.



In the 2010 and 2012 Challenge Cup finals, it felt like a match up between a once great Leeds who were now a declining force, and a Wire team at the peak of their powers. In the 2011 semi and 2012 Grand Final, it felt like a match up between a relentless Leeds team who were in their element, and a nervous Wire team who were uncertain in the big occasion.



And Leeds continued to be a top team after that Wire team had disappeared, so they weren't really in decline.

Great point. It takes more than just a captain to make a team a championship winning team. Players need to compliment each other with their particular skill set that they possess, and equally important, to play for each other. The coaches job is to increase the skill set of every player, to maximise teamwork, utilise its strengths and exploit the oppositions weaknesses.

Sounds easy, but a lot can wrong on the day, as we've experienced in our recent play off history. So we need a coach, captain and team, that doesn't let things totally unravel as we did against HKR. To win a GF, you need a lot of factors to combine and a little luck too, and when you need to make your own luck, then don't do the wrong things out of sheer panic.



I hope that Powell has had a long conversation with Ratchford, and a few other senior players, who let the red mist descend after we went 6-0 down in our last game.

This "unravelling" or lack of composure has been with us a long time



2012 GF Leeds 18 - 14 up with 20 minutes to go - lost 18 - 26 (capt Morley)

2013 GF Wigan 16 - 6 up with 31 minutes to go - lost 16 - 30 (capt Morley)

2016 GF Wigan 6 - 0 up with 25 minutes to go - lost 6 - 12 (capt Hill)

2016 CCF Hull 10 - 0 up with 20 minutes to go - lost 10-12 (capt Hill)



With the mental fragility still unaddressed we compounded that under Price with the inability to score points when it mattered ...



2018 GF Wigan we just couldn't score for 68 minutes - lost 4 - 12 (capt Hill)

2019 Playoff1 Cas - lost 12 -14 (capt Hill)

2020 Playoff1 Hull FC - lost 14 - 27 (capt Hughes/Hill)

2021 Playoff1 - Hull KR lost 0 -19 (capt Hughes)



In our 5 big games with Price we won 1 against Saints CC 18-4. The telling stat is that in all those 5 games we only scored a total of 48 points.



If Powell can fix the composure and attacking threat we will have a much better chance of success.

Hit the nail on the head with composure and mentality. Not just with the captain but all the senior players. To be fair to Cooper if a ball is stripped from him and the decision does not go his way I can't remember him spitting his dummy out and shaking his head and waving his arms about in disbelief. Hill was always doing it when things weren't going his way. Ratchford in the play off game against Hull Kr was done like that and then was still in the line whinging at the ref when Mike Lewis chipped through..

I think smart teams target players like this knowing that they will lose their head.

I can't remember players like sinfield or Roby ever being thrown off their game in this manner. When you see a senior player reacting like that you know they are rattled and worried that the decision has impacted them it puts doubt in your own mind and gives the opposition a lift.

Rl is an incredibly physical sport but if teams can sense that the mentality is not right then you are there for the taking..

Don’t want to drift the thread, but I was just thinking about that 2018 GF, Wires71. The game turned when George Williams spotted a chance to kick to the corner behind Charnley and Davies raced down the wing to pounce.



I don’t think I can remember the last time Warrington tried that? It’s just the sort of vision that Williams and Widdop have though, and I can’t wait to see Ashton benefit from that sort of stuff.



With regards to the Captaincy, maybe we should try someone like Holmes. You can argue he hasn’t earned it here, but maybe we need something left-field to put the losing mentality behind us. Did he get the chance to captain Cas at any point?

I can't see past Mike Cooper as our team captain for 2022 myself. Only other credible options are Widdop, Currie, Williams and daz Clark IMO.

For the best captain I have seen at Warrington it would be the"Old Fox" - Harry Bath.



For my own club it would be an ex Warrington player Roy Francis.

Was Currie the captain of the English schoolboys or academy teams at some point? Or did I imagine that?

John Bateman was the captain of the England Academy team v Australia that Ben Currie played in which I attended at Leigh Sports Village.



Currie is a year younger than Bateman, so there could have been subsequent games that he captained? .

Out of interest, in the modern British game (and not just Wire), can anyone name a player who comes across as a natural leader, in the way we seem to be recalling the likes of Sinfield or Farrell were?



Personally, I can't. Perhaps Roby at a push, but that's more down to the length of his career and the subsequent success he has had.



Maybe the lack of natural leaders in the modern game is another indicator of how sterile and formulaic the game now is, compared to previous eras, and that the real leadership is provided by the coach and his assistants, via walkie talkies around the pitch - I mean its blatantly obvious that the job of the water carriers isn't just to carry water onto the pitch?



So, perhaps the idea of a 'captain' is now an outdated one and the real on pitch leader is actually sat in the stands, providing constant guidance, via his staff?

This is the difference between simple management, as opposed to leadership though, isn't it? A great manager is one who knows the technical details to a high degree and gets his staff to execute what they've been taught/shown, to maintain a high standard (which in sport is consistently winning). Leadership is different in that you need to create change outside the norm. For example, you're behind on the scoreboard after an unfair decision to award a try to the other team. The team now needs to raise a gear and overcome adversity to gat back in front. A manager in the stands can't just tell people to do that, you need a leader on the field who goes out there and shows how it's done, putting their body on the line, making bigger hits, an extra strong run, a last ditch try-saver when they're out on their feet. Inspiring the troops to follow their lead.



It's the interesting the point you make about whether we see much of that in the modern game though, because do we see much of that in society as a whole? Without drifting into politics, take a look at current global issues like the pandemic and climate change. We have a lot of talkers telling us what we should be doing, without leading by example and doing anything themselves. In the pandemic we saw top scientific experts, celebrities and politicians telling us to lock down, wear masks etc for we are 'Covidiots', yet they themselves get caught breaking the rules. With climate change we've got all these nature-lovers and film stars telling us we are at "one-minute to midnight" and need to change our energy consumption drastically. Not seen any of them give up their own luxury houses, nice cars or holidays in the sun though!

So yes, maybe there aren't many modern day 'leaders' for us all to be inspired by.