Fremantle are yet to announce their captain for the 2023 season as speculation continues about Nat Fyfe’s future in the role.
Having skippered the club for the last six seasons, the question has been raised as to whether Fyfe may be better off without captaincy responsibilities as he tries to overcome the injury woes that kept him to just seven games in 2022.
While the Dockers have plenty of young leaders - including Andrew Brayshaw and Caleb Serong - SEN WA’s Tim Gossage posed the question to Dockers coach Justin Longmuir whether the club still needed Fyfe to be captain as they look to play finals again in 2023.
“The basic answer is, hopefully not,” Longmuir replied on SEN WA Breakfast.
“I’ve said it a few times, we want to build a depth of leadership and we don’t want to rely on too few.
“With David Mundy who offered so much in terms of leadership at our footy club leaving, we need others to step up.
“Really, the captain is one person, but we need a lot of people and players to support the captain.”
Whether Fyfe continues in the job or not, Longmuir stressed that the Dockers are looking to build a strong base of leaders with the captain simply a figurehead of that.
Longmuir also added that when the time comes to name the club’s 2023 leadership group they’ll weigh up whether the burden of captaincy is best for Fyfe as he enters his 14th AFL season.
“Whoever the captain is needs real support from the playing group and we need a depth of leadership in our group,” Longmuir said.
“That’s been a real positive of our pre-season so far, the player-to-player conversations that are going on and the communication on and off-field has been really strong from a number of people.
“I think another scenario around leadership and the captaincy this year is making sure what’s best for Nathan going forward and whether the burden of being the captain is good for his footy.
“You mention the number of injuries he had last year, that was a really tough season on him as a player and as a skipper.
“We need to make sure we get that right and we probably need a little more time to work through that in terms of just seeing how he tracks through the pre-season.
“We’ll go through that process later in the pre-season and see how it flushes out but we need to make sure what’s best for the club and what’s best for Fyfey going forward with his footy and the impact he can have on the team.”
Fremantle will name their leadership group later this pre-season ahead of kicking off their campaign with a Round 1 clash against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.