Leaders vying for NYC captaincy

A nine-player leadership group has been established in the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys’ NYC squad to help identify the team’s on-field leaders for the 2013 season.

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With the captains from 2012 no longer part of the under-20s set-up, coach Todd Wilson has adopted a new approach to finding the players who will be in charge on the field.

Nine potential leaders have been identified and will work with Mick Reilly from business consulting firm Massick and new Cowboys football operations manager and former Warriors captain Micheal Luck to develop their leadership skills.

The group includes final year NYC players Zac Santo, Sam Foster, Jayden Hodges and Jack Svendsen, as well as Halvor Harris, Pat Kaufusi, Corey Jensen and Jack Kelleher, who made their under-20s debuts last year, and Alex Grant, who joined the Cowboys at the start of the current pre-season.

Their efforts during a two-day camp at Herveys Range before Christmas played a large part in determining selection for the leadership program.

“We believe that while some guys show leadership potential, unless we can develop that in them we’re not going to get them to the levels we’re after,” Wilson said.

“We’ve selected who we think our best leaders are and they’ll work with Mick, who was part of the camp, and Micheal Luck consistently during the pre-season.

“We want to develop the leadership qualities in the guys we’ve identified and that should help us perform better as a team this year.

“We’d like to think we have more than one potential captain in that group.”

Wilson said it was likely the skipper for round one against Canterbury would come from the four older players.

“We’ve seen them start to take more ownership of how we train and prepare and all those things that happen off the field,” he said.

“They’re already showing the benefits of being part of that group.”