The five-man captaincy group is an AFL first and will involve each of the players sharing the club’s leadership roles and responsibilities. Each will be recognised as club co-captains.
Lions Chairman Tony Kelly made the announcement in front of a crowd of Lions members, supporters and media at the club’s new social club, the Lions Den.
“I am pleased and delighted to announce to all our members, supporters, sponsors and the AFL community that the captaincy duties and functions will be shared amongst our leadership group,” Mr Kelly said. “The history books will reflect that all five men are co-captains of the Brisbane Lions in 2007.
“Since the retirement of Michael Voss, the club engaged in a specific ‘in house’ leadership program to identify our team leadership moving forward.
“The decision is the result of an in-depth analysis over a number of months with our entire playing list heavily involved.
“This decision has been made because we believe it is in the best interests of our entire playing list and that it will maximize our team performance in 2007.
“The Brisbane Lions Football Club is prepared to fully consider and adopt new and innovative measures in contrast to tradition, if in our belief, there is an alternative better for our club and team.
“This is a significant moment in our club’s history and I am sure that our new leadership group would love to have all Lions supporters on board from day one of their captaincy reign.
“We are now looking forward to round one on Saturday 31 March and ask that all supporters get behind this new era of the club and become a Lions member.”
Lions Senior Coach Leigh Matthews has been pleased with the leadership displayed by each of the individuals since early this year and feels that the decision will positively impact the team.
“It seemed like the best system,” Matthews said. “After plenty of due diligence and after talking to plenty of people, the end result is what we think is best for our team going forward.”
“We have discussed how it’s going to work. There won’t be a different captain each week. The leadership functions will be shared amongst the guys. They will share roles and responsibilities rather than alternating on a weekly basis.
“The five were initially picked by the playing group at the end of November and these were the players that best represented the values that the playing group believes in.
Brown, the youngest of the captains at 25, feels that the five-man captaincy group has worked to the Lions advantage so far in the pre-season and hopes that it will continue to do so.
“We have seen the way [the five-man captaincy] has worked in the last few months and it seemed to work quite well. We are all now looking forward to the challenge of leading the side,” Brown said.
“I don’t think it really changes much on the field, we’ll still go out and play the game the same way.”
Despite being sidelined for the past 12 months through injury, Lappin has renewed enthusiasm heading in to the 2007 AFL season.
“For me it’s a very exciting time, I feel like I’m 18 again,” Lappin said. “I’m as keen as I’ve ever been and being part of this leadership group has instilled extra confidence in me as well.
“We have got a great bunch of young kids coming through and the group’s really united at the moment. Watching these guys play has gotten me so excited about getting back out there.”
Power is confident that having five people as part of a united leadership group will bring the best out of the team and each other.
“We have all had a lot of great times together and we’re very close and I think [being captains] has brought us even closer.
“We have all got different strengths and attributes that we bring to the group and it’s great to learn from the other blokes and see how they approach being a leader.”
As he approaches his tenth year with the club, Black expects that as captain his on-field responsibilities will increase.
“It’s a huge honour,” Black said. “As soon as we get out there, I think we’ll assume more responsibility and there’ll be times when we’ll need to step up and take the reigns.”
Former Fitzroy player Johnson is no stranger to being a leader having already co-captained Australia in the Internations Rules Series and captained the Indigenous All-Stars team.
“I’m happy to be part of this group and work alongside these guys,” Johnson said. “All the young guys have been working really well together and I think it shows how close we are as a group.”
