Culture

[crashlander]

Murphy has become as Judd like as he can.  He may not have the same impact on match day as Judd could (few can), but as we saw against Melbourne, we were much better when he was on the field rather than after he went off.
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Besides, look at the steps Murphy has taken over the last 2 years.  He has grown immensely and is no longer the reluctant meek youngster who shy's away from the spotlight, and last night delivered his speech sounding more like a leader than he ever has.

Indeed. Murphy has grown into his role. I don't know if he was ready for it when he got it, be he has made considerable improvements in most of the areas you would consider 'leadership'.
We are certainly better with him on the field and when he is not present.
He is certainly working harder and appears less likely to be non contributor than he was earlier.

Can we do better? Probably. We may well have his replacement in Patrick Cripps. But we need more leadership on the park rather than less. And I would give Cripps some time before giving him the burden. He'll be ready sooner than later, but we want that. And we want Cripps to have competition for the job.

In 1995 David Parkin COULD give control over to the team in a number of areas because we had plenty of on field leaders. Many of the players were experienced and comfortable in providing the leadership for the team. We haven't had that for quite a while. A lot of guys don't feel that they belong because they are not champions, others because they are young and inexperienced, others because they are not outgoing, etc. Fair enough. In 1995 we had huge amounts of experience and a lot of self confidence in the ranks. It takes time and relative success to develop that, not to mention a bit of talent and internal expectations. We don't have that now, but we can get it back! It is not an impossibility.

It takes time and grooming. Murphy didn't get much of that, and his style of play probably didn't lend itself to the captaincy at the time. But he has taken it and matured with it. Hopefully Gibbs can do likewise. Now we need to recruit and develop the next generation of leaders, so that, even if we miss the captain through injury, we have the leadership on every line to cover for that and to take us on to success.