Former Geelong assistant Brenton Sanderson says Mark Blicavs would be his pick to succeed Joel Selwood as the Cats’ captain going forward.
Selwood played his final game in Geelong’s 2022 Grand Final triumph, retiring as the game’s longest-serving skipper and a great of the club.
With almost impossible shoes to fill, Chris Scott and his club have a big decision to make on who will lead the club going forward. There appears to be five clear front-runners among many options for the Cats, and Sanderson – who played 199 games for Geelong – sees Blicavs as the best one.
“It’s really hard, there’s some fantastic options, they’re probably blessed with a lot of players who could do it,” Sanderson told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“I just don’t know which way they go, it’s so hard to do it after Joel Selwood as well. He’s been the spiritual leader down there as well as the captain for a really long time, but I think the foundations are set now, they’ve got really good support around that leadership group.
“It could be one of seven or eight players who I think would be deserving of the captaincy there. Whether they take age into consideration (is an important question).
“For me personally, I’d probably go Blicavs. Having watched him so closely and the way he plays the game, he’s so loud out on the field with his directions. My money would be on him if I was going to bet on who was going to captain Geelong this year.”
Blicavs was absent from the leadership group in 2022 but had previously served as the Cats’ vice-captain. He has 227 games to his name.
He’ll turn 32 during the 2023 season but is coming off a career-best year.
However, selecting Blicavs would be a snub of current deputies Patrick Dangerfield and Tom Stewart.
Dangerfield shapes as the favourite to take over the captaincy given his distinguished record as one of the game’s elites.
While Sanderson identified Dangerfield as a captaincy candidate during his time at the Crows, he now wants the 32-year-old to focus on his footy.
“Danger would be a fantastic captain. When I was coaching the Crows I thought he would be the future captain of Adelaide, I thought he and Rory Sloane, when I was there, showed exceptional leadership for young men in their early 20s,” the former Adelaide coach added.
“He’s certainly been there long enough now to know everything about the club and the way it operates. A Brownlow Medallist at Geelong, he’d be a fantastic choice as well.
“But I think personally, and I know Danger pretty well, I think he’s better when he focuses on his own game and just does what he needs to do… but like I said, he showed exceptional leadership qualities for a player in his young 20s when I coached him at the Crows.”
Blicavs has never played less than 17 games in a season since debuting in 2013.