Adelaide Crows make hotly anticipated captaincy call after Sloane injury
Rory Sloane has been ruled out for the remainder of the season and now the Crows have chosen their new on-field leaders.
AFL
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Rory Sloane will remain captain of the Adelaide Crows despite his season-ending ACL injury but coach Matthew Nicks is calling on the remaining members of the leadership group to step up in his absence.
Sloane tore his ACL in the Crows’ round five win over Richmond and went in for successful surgery on Wednesday.
That afternoon, Nicks revealed the remaining members of the leadership group – Tom Doedee, Ben Keays, Reilly O’Brien and Brodie Smith – would assume the on-field captaincy until the end of the season.
Nicks stressed Sloane would remain a leader at the club despite his injury.
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“He’s our captain and will be going forward; it will be on-field where we will be challenged,” Nicks said.
“What we’ll now need is for others to step up and fill that void that we’ve got with him missing.
“Off-field, we’ll get him back into our program as quickly as possible. There’ll probably be a role for him on game day, whether that’s on the bench or upstairs with us. He sees the game really well; he’s the ultimate leader.”
Nicks said he had confidence the leadership group could handle the extra workload.
“There’s four guys there who are outstanding leaders in their own right and they will work through the rest of the year and make sure we have that leadership on-field,” he said.
“It’s being influential in key moments and leading that young group that we have.
“Everyone will need to step up from this point.”
Nicks said the four members of the leadership group all had the chance to prove themselves as worthy successors to Sloane.
Sloane has a year to run on his contract and while Rory Laird indicated on Tuesday the injury was unlikely to force his captain into retirement, Nicks said the Crows were looking to the future.
“This is about those four stepping up for the remainder of the year and then being ready, come the end of the year or possibly the year after, to step into what is a pretty tough role at any footy club, let alone the Adelaide Football Club,” he said.
Nicks said coin toss duties were likely to be shared between the four leaders, starting from Saturday’s clash with the Western Bulldogs in Ballarat.
“When you play in Ballarat, you play against a very, very good side in the Bulldogs. They’ve been that now for a number of years,” Nicks said.
“When they’re on, they’re a very hard team to play against. We know that.”
The Crows won’t be shying away from the challenge, though, especially not after defeating the Tigers last week.
“We go down there with some confidence ourselves around the footy we’re playing, off the back of a good win against a very good side,” he said.
“Our challenge now is to show some consistency and back it up.”
Originally published as Adelaide Crows make hotly anticipated captaincy call after Sloane injury
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