Kane Cornes has questioned whether Tom Jonas is the right man to captain Port Adelaide.
It is being reported that the Power will revert to a sole skipper in 2020, scrapping their co-captaincy model after just one season.
Midfielder Ollie Wines will be dumped from the joint leadership role, leaving key defender Jonas as stand-alone skipper for the club’s 150th anniversary.
The decision to return to the single captain tradition has been lauded by Cornes but the expected sole appointment of Jonas has been met with criticism by the club’s games record holder.
“Is Tom Jonas the right man to be the sole captain of the footy club? My firm belief of that is no,” he said on SEN SA Breakfast.
“Tom Jonas isn’t the right choice as stand-alone captain. I like Tom Jonas, I admire the way he goes about his footy. No one plays the Port Adelaide way as much as Tom Jonas does. When the ball is there, you know with 100% certainty that he is going to attack it and out his body on the line.
“He’s a team-first guy. He’s good around the locker room, all of that. I think he’s a serviceable, hard-nose defender. He’s not a captain of a footy club.
“There’s an intangible when you look at the captain of a footy club. You look at Joel Selwood, you think he’s (got) captain all over him. You look at the way Nat Fyfe goes about it, he’s THE captain.
“The big name captains of a footy club - can you really rank Tom Jonas with those? Does he have the brilliance, does he have the skill, does he have the charisma, does he have the marketability of the best captains in the competition? No he doesn’t.
“I’m just putting that point blank right now. He is not a marquee captain of a big football club in their 150th year.”
Cornes reiterated his point that the position Jonas plays deep in defence does not allow him to impact his side when they need it most, while doubling down on his desire to see Hamish Hartlett installed in the role.
He added: “How can Tom Jonas, from full-back when he is playing on the best players in the competition with the toughest task on the field, change a game of footy?
“Maybe he can go back with the flight of the ball and do something courageous but can he inject himself into the midfield? Can he go forward and kick a big goal, like Hamish Hartlett can do?
“No he can’t.
“Tom Jonas is going to be the captain. Is he the right man? Absolutely not, for me.
“That is nothing against Tom Jonas and the way he goes about it.
“The captain of the Port Adelaide Football Club for next year, if it is one, should have been Hamish Hartlett.”