Collingwood veteran Travis Varcoe hails the leadership of Darcy Moore and Jamie Elliott

Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury sets the gold standard in terms of leadership at the Magpies. However, there are new voices emerging, with Darcy Moore and Jamie Elliott leading the charge.

Darcy Moore has emerged as a leader at Collingwood. Picture: Getty Images

Collingwood veteran Travis Varcoe has hailed the growing presence of new leaders including Darcy Moore and Jamie Elliott during a pre-season in which the Magpies have used last year’s Grand Final loss to “get stronger”.

Varcoe, embarking on his fifth season at Collingwood after eight at Geelong, said Magpies skipper Scott Pendlebury continued to set the gold standard in the quest for improvement.

But the 30-year-old said the emergence of new voices at the club like Moore, who only played seven games last season, was “refreshing” and signalled a clear intent on the eve of a new premiership campaign.

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“There’s no-one to learn off better than our skipper ... and we have a lot of leaders now at the club who are building to that standard. It’s refreshing to hear different voices come through,” Varcoe said at streaming service Kayo’s launch of the Australian GP and Melbourne 400.

“There are a few you probably take a bit more notice of, because they don’t say as much, but when they do it’s worth it.

Jamie Elliott has had a strong pre-season following a year of injury issues. Picture: Michael Klein

“I love hearing from Darcy Moore. He’s pretty young in his career but he sees the game unbelievably well.

“Some people don’t like to rant and rave, they just do it by actions, which is fine. Then there are other people who are quite vocal with how they set things up. Darcy is a hybrid.

“He’s an unbelievable athlete, and it’s pretty exciting to see him out there. Fingers crossed for us he stays fit throughout the year”.

Elliott, who has only played 17 games in the past three seasons, all in 2017, has kicked six goals in his three pre-season games and Varcoe said just having the dynamic small forward on the park was “exciting”.

“He sits in that category too of leading by example but also knows what he’s talking about,” Varcoe said.

Coach Nathan Buckley took his players through a review of last year’s Grand Final loss as soon as they returned for pre-season training and Varcoe, who also played in a losing decider in 2008 with the Cats, said it was important to learn from the defeat.

Jamie Elliott and Darcy Moore have emerged as leaders at Collingwood. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

“You have to learn from the things you do well, and keep building on those. But those harder things that you probably want to push under the carpet, you just have to bring them to the fore as well to learn from it, build from it, get stronger,” he said.

“Our group have done that pretty well I think. But we won’t find out until we get out on the park in Round 1. Not even then.

“We are going to face some sort of challenges or adversity at some point throughout the year and those are the times you will really find out. It’d be pretty silly to say we’ve learned from it, we’re going to be great.

“When the challenge gets thrown down, that’s when we’ll find out.”