CTV> Nick Maxwell speaks to CTV after he was appointed the 45th Collingwood captain CTV> Press Conference with Eddie McGuire, Mick Malthouse, Nick Maxwell and the 2009 leadership groupCOLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse says new skipper Nick Maxwell will become one of the competition’s great captains.
Maxwell was appointed to the top job on Wednesday, taking over from the retired Scott Burns who was captain for one season.
He followed the long reign of club legend Nathan Buckley.
Those two are pretty big names to follow but Malthouse said he was convinced the Pies had chosen the right man.
Malthouse said Maxwell had observed and learned from former club leaders such as Buckley, Burns and Gavin Brown in his six seasons at the club, as well as continuing his own personal growth.
“He’s put his own little bits and pieces in that and he’s become a player that is one of the first picked,” Malthouse said.
“It was a very, very easy choice in the end, to be able to say that we needed a Nick Maxwell to guide these young players because it’s not something that he’s going to be new to, because he’s been doing it since he’s been at the football club.”
Malthouse said no-one was certain if Maxwell would be a good captain, although he believed his no-nonsense defender had the right credentials.
“I think that Nick Maxwell is going to be one of the great captains of the AFL. [It’s a] big statement, but I’ve got the utmost confidence in that because of the person [he is],” Malthouse said on Wednesday afternoon.
“In his first year he will need assistance and that’s why we’ve given him four deputies who in their own right are very good people.
“We’ve got the utmost faith as a match committee in recommending this to the board that Nick Maxwell should be and will be the captain of Collingwood and we think for a long time.”
Just days earlier the Collingwood board, including president Eddie McGuire, met to discuss the football department’s recommendations and arrived at a unanimous decision – the once-unwanted former Geelong Falcon would be its 45th club captain.
“He’s a bloke who’s tough, he’s a bloke who shows all the characteristics that we love at the Collingwood Football Club,” McGuire said.
“People would say maybe there have been more illustrious players of the Collingwood Football Club to take on the captaincy.
“I remember that Tony Shaw was in the same situation when he became the captain of Collingwood and there were question marks over Nathan Buckley when he became the captain of Collingwood.
“But when I look down at the list here and see that Nathan Buckley hand-picked Nick to take on his famous No.5 guernsey only last season, that he’s won the Gavin Brown Award for indicators – that’s the hard things.
“And the year before he won the Darren Millane Award for the best clubman at Collingwood. It just adds further weight to the decision that’s been made.”
