Patrick Dangerfield and joint vice-captain Rory Sloane are looking forward to ‘keeping the seat warm’ for injured Crows skipper Nathan van Berlo in 2014.
On Friday, Adelaide announced van Berlo would continue to lead the Club, with new joint vice-captains Dangerfield and Rory Sloane to share the captaincy duties on-field in van Berlo’s absence. Van Berlo, 27, is expected to spend about six months on the sidelines after rupturing his Achilles tendon at training last week.
Dangerfield said van Berlo would remain an “extremely important” figure at the Club during his stint on the sidelines.
“Sloaney and I spoke about it the other day. We’re looking forward to our time in charge, but as I said to ‘VB’, ‘we’ll just warm the seat for you for a little bit’. VB can come back at finals time and, hopefully, be holding up the cup at the end of the year,” Dangerfield told Channel Crow.
“VB is an extremely important player for us even when he’s not actually out there on the field. He’ll play a really important role behind the scenes. He’s an outstanding leader for our football club and he’s unwavering in his approach regardless of whether he’s playing or not.
“It’ll be a tough year for him for sure, but if anyone can handle it the way it should be handled it’ll be him.”
Sloane said he and Dangerfield would rely on van Berlo, and other influential players around the Club for support and guidance during their tenure as acting captains.
“It’s going to be awesome, but it’s not just up to me and Danger. We’ve got great leaders around us like VB, Ben Rutten, Brent Reilly … and Scott Thompson. We’ll work pretty closely with those guys to make it as easy as possible.
“VB has some time away from playing now, so he’ll be putting a lot of time into developing guys like me and Danger. There’s so much to learn from VB.
“He’s the ultimate benchmark for the standards set at the Club.”
Dangerfield and Sloane, both 23-years-old, have shared similar career paths to-date.
The influential midfielders were elevated to the Crows leadership group together ahead of the 2012 season, and have established themselves as elite players in the competition since that time.
Great mates, Dangerfield and Sloane are different players and people, which Sloane believes will lead to great synergy on game day.
“Danger and I see and think about footy in completely different ways and I think that’s probably why we’re both there as vice-captains. We can help each other,” he said.
With the leadership group revealed, attention has already turned to who will toss the coin in Adelaide’s season-opener against Geelong at Simonds Stadium on March 20.
“I’m happy to give that one to Danger. He loves that sort of stuff,” Sloane said with a laugh.
