It was interesting to see Simon Mannering stand down as captain and be replaced by Rýan Hoffman. Hoffman is an experienced old head. I guess I would have expected the captaincy to go to Isaac Luke or possibly Shaun Johnson as they are clearly more on-field leaders in key positions, and both are New Zealanders.
Mannering suggested if the captaincy was just about leading the team on-field, he would have stayed on. He said it was the olff-field commitmentes, in particular the regular travel to Sydney that he found tiring. I did find this all a bit odd as he is hardly a regular performer in the media, either here or in Australia. I guess there are more captain dicussions in Sydney than we think.
I heard on Radio Sport their league commentator Dale Budge asserted that Mannering was the best captain the Warriors have had, better than his predecessor Steve Price, who he said was too tough on the players, demanding better performance. Mannering got on with the players better.
Budge will certainly know the views of the players better. I wish though the host had suggested to him that the performance of the warriors in recent years suggested they might need a captain who was a bit tougher. Hoffman seems a nice guy too, but if he is more demanding of better performances, he will receive no criticism from me.
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