New Glasgow Warriors head coach Danny Wilson has adopted the same approach to leadership as his predecessor, Dave Rennie, by naming co-captains of the squad for the remainder of the 2019-20 season (which get under way again on Saturday) and all of the 2020-21 season.
Ryan Wilson previously captained the side on a solo basis during the 2017-18 campaign and this will be the third consecutive year he has jointly led the team, and with previous co-captain Callum Gibbins now back in his native New Zealand, hooker Fraser Brown has taken over the shared responsibility.
Coach Wilson explained that his usual instinct would be to name just one captain but the hectic schedule of the next nine months prompted him to split the role.
“This season has changed quite dramatically over the last few weeks from the announcement of the international period which will make it like no other season,” he explained. “We’re going to lose our Scotland players for eight weeks before Christmas, and then again post-Christmas for the Six Nations, so, all of a sudden, the season becomes pretty broken up into two working groups and an element of that has come into consideration.
“Ryan wasn’t in the last selected Scotland squad, while Fraser was and part of the leadership group, so we know that we are going to lose him for a fair period of time.
“Ryan and Fraser also complement each other in terms of their leadership styles, which was another key part of this. Ryan is a real character – a jack-the-lad type of person – he’s very popular with the group, he gets up morale, he adds humour where it needs to be added, and he drives standards.
“Then you’ve got Fraser, who is extremely on top of standards, studies the game inside out and is a key decision-maker in terms of how the flow of the game is going.”
While the two players are equal partners, if they are on the pitch at the same time then the buck is going to have to stop with one of them, and that will be with Brown this coming weekend against Edinburgh.
“The co-captaincy is obviously based on the season but this weekend the referee’s port of call from a captaincy perspective will be Fraser, although both players will have their part to play,” said the coach.
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