Sydney will have a sole captain in 2024, with Callum Mills undertaking the leadership role on his own as Dane Rampe and Luke Parker step down from their duties.
The 26-year-old has been the club’s co-captain for two years and has often been considered a long-term leader and the right man to carry on the famous ‘Bloods’ culture.
The Swans were so convinced that Mills was their man that they refused to change their thoughts on his leadership capabilities despite him seriously injuring his shoulder in a Mad Monday wrestling incident with a teammate.
While Sydney were obviously disappointed to have one of their star players injured, coach John Longmire says they have full faith that Mills will learn from that experience and be better for it.
“He has been a reasonably obvious choice (be sole captain) to those internal I guess at the Swans for a long time,” Longmire said on SEN Breakfast.
“He's just got a great ability to be able to think team and do things on the ground as far as setting the tone and off the ground, he has been superb for a long period of time.
“From that regard, I think most people internally would have thought it was a natural progression for Callum.
“Obviously, what happened at the end of the year, it certainly didn't change our minds,
“But we needed to put a bit of time in between that and the announcement yesterday.
“Everyone makes mistakes as Callum's put his hand up to, but in the end, he was the man to lead us forward and we've got full faith in him to be able to learn from his experiences, but also be just a wonderful captain for this club.
“What happens in life is that you deal with some things that get thrown up and you have to negotiate the best way forward and the best way forward for this footy club was still to have Callum as the sole captain.”
Mills himself is taking those learnings seriously, and he says the biggest thing he took from the incident is finding a balance between having a good time off-field while not doing anything stupid.
The skipper added that he was really disappointed to miss a chunk of the 2024 season as a result of the rotator cuff injury.
“There's a lot (of learnings to take from it),” Mills said on SEN The Run Home.
“I think there's still a serious nature to it in terms of the fact that we are professional footballers and we're paid to be able to perform on weekends and stuff like that.
“For me to be able to let the team down and not be able to do that in the early part of the season is really disappointing.
“It's really finding the balance between having a good time and not putting yourself at risk or doing anything stupid.
“Everyone likes having a good time but there's obviously a line in terms of what's acceptable and what's not.”
In terms of when the Swans can expect their new sole leader to take the field, Longmire is flagging a mid-season return while not putting an exact timeframe on his recovery.
“He's coming on really well,” Longmire said.
“He's doing a fair bit of training for us. Obviously, none of the contact work, but he's still running around and doing some drills and moving really well.
“The challenge will be we'll have to hold him back - saving from himself I guess to some degree in regard to trying to push really hard to get back.
“We're talking around the mid-season bye, maybe hopefully a bit earlier, but we're not locking anything in at the moment.
“We'll just keep it open and see where he progresses.”
Sydney begin their 2024 season with an Opening Round clash against Melbourne at the SCG on Thursday, March 7.
