TWO YEARS ago, Jobe Watson was out of the Essendon side and wondering what direction his career could take.

Watson had finished runner-up in the club's best and fairest award after a breakout 2006 season but, hampered in part by a calf injury, struggled at stages in 2007 and missed Kevin Sheedy's last three games as coach.

The Bombers were on the brink of change. Sheedy would be replaced by Matthew Knights and, for Watson, more responsibility as both a midfielder and leader would come with the retirement of James Hird (2007), Jason Johnson, Damien Peverill and Adam Ramanauskas (2008).

Watson admitted that, with the challenges of 2007, he doubted he could return to a position where he would be considered for club captaincy.

"It's one of those times where you really have to assess where you're at and where you want to go in footy," the Bombers' new skipper said from Windy Hill on Monday.

"If you're going to get the best out of yourself, you have to continually be challenged and that was one of those times.

"You either take one path or you take the other."

Watson said that at the time he reflected on what he had offered as a player earlier in his career and felt he had stagnated.

The 24-year-old added that Knights, who as the club's development coach had accompanied Watson and six of his teammates on an educational trip to Japan at the end of 2006, had encouraged him to challenge himself.

Knights has continued to provide that motivation from the senior post.

"I got a harder edge about myself and about the training that I had to do and the approach I had to take into footy," Watson said.

"I think that's a constant for an AFL footballer. Because the game's continually improving and is continually getting harder, you have to improve with it. As soon as you begin to stagnate, it catches up with you really quickly.

"[Knighta] has given me enormous faith. We've had a good relationship.

"He's shown a different side of coaching and given me different tools to work on and I think he's really helped my development."

Watson's appointment has him follow in the footsteps of his father Tim, who led the Bombers from 1989 to 1991.

Whether he believed he was the right person to succeed Matthew Lloyd had outweighed the romance of becoming the Bombers' first father-son combination to captain them.

He discussed the prospects with Tim at the end of last season.

"He asked me if I thought I was ready," Watson said. "I said I wasn't sure and he gave me his advice about where he thought I needed to improve.

"I asked him what it was like to be captain and he said, 'Well, in the '80s and early '90s, it was a very different role to what it is today'.

"Having that advice and having someone I can go to ... and being able to speak to Hirdy and Lloyd as well, it will be a tremendous help because it is such a big role."

Watson said he wouldn't look to change his game too much but would adopt a more holistic approach to get the best out of a talented young list.

Andrew Welsh is Watson's vice-captain, with Mark McVeigh, David Hille, Brent Stanton and Dustin Fletcher completing the leadership group.