Some captains, even the most inspirational, can take time to grow into their leadership skin. Others seem almost born for the role.

Two of this season's new skippers, Adelaide's Nathan van Berlo and Hawthorn's Luke Hodge, are good examples.

For some time, Hodge has been able to lift his teammates with individual bursts of brilliance, while his uncompromising attack on the ball and man has almost demanded they emulate his example.

Off the field, however, Hodge's leadership skills have taken longer to develop. While he is now a down-to-earth and effective spokesman for his club, one of his former skippers, Richie Vandenberg, recently told The Age, Hodge's appetite for "a good time" and "mischief" in his early years at Hawthorn had delayed his rise to the captaincy. 

Van Berlo, however, came to the Crows seemingly readymade to lead.

His combined on-field and off-field qualities convinced teammates to elect him into the Crows' leadership group after just three seasons and 53 games, at the age of 21.

At the time, Adelaide coach Neil Craig was adamant the appointment was not a token attempt to introduce young blood into the leadership ranks.
 
"He is not there for the experience, he is there because he can do the job required," Craig said.

Van Berlo's predecessor, Simon Goodwin, said his leadership skills were obvious from "day one".
  
After van Berlo was announced as skipper in December last year, Goodwin told The Advertiser: "He has a great head on his shoulders, leads by example on and off the field, is a good communicator and wants the best for the club and other players.

"Put it all together, and he's the total package."

A good example of van Berlo's on-field leadership came in round 20 last season against the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba.

With Goodwin out injured, van Berlo was acting captain. With one minute left in the game, the Crows led by one point.
 
Taking matters into his own hands, van Berlo ran the length of the ground to mark 45m out from goal on a tight angle. He went back and kicked truly to seal a seven-point win for his team.

But Adelaide CEO Steven Trigg said, as naturally as leadership had come to van Berlo, he had worked at it.

"Nathan has immersed himself in the art of leadership, and worked hard on improving his effectiveness as a previous member of the leadership group," Trigg said in December.

Predictably, the 24-year-old van Berlo downplayed his own leadership skills when he spoke to the AFL Record recently.

He preferred to talk about the people who have shaped his thoughts on leadership.

He said he had been fortunate to have played under Crows captains Mark Ricciuto and Goodwin, and to have served in the latter's leadership group for three years.

While acknowledging the growing off-field demands on captains, van Berlo says watching Ricciuto and Goodwin had reinforced how important on-field leadership remained.

"The big thing that stood out for me was the way both Simon and Mark were able to lead on the field by their examples," van Berlo says.

"In my mind, that's what the best leaders in the comp do."

Asked the best advice he had received since becoming captain, van Berlo said: "What Neil Craig constantly reinforces with me is that I need to be what I want my team to be.

"I really relish those words. If I'm asking something of my teammates, they're entitled to expect that I'm doing the same myself."

Perhaps van Berlo's leadership qualities were fast-tracked when he was drafted by the Crows with the No. 24 pick in the 2004 NAB AFL Draft.

A West Australian, van Berlo had grown up part of a close-knit family in the northern Perth suburb of Hillarys.

His parents, Garry and Jenny, had earlier migrated from New Zealand and initially had little time for Australian Football. Garry had been a rugby union man, having played for provincial side Waikato Chiefs, while Jenny had played hockey in North Island representative teams.

However, van Berlo fell in "love" with football once he started school, playing with his mates at recess and lunchtime, and on the weekends at Auskick.

At home, he and younger brothers Jay and Mitch spent most of their spare time playing kick-to-kick in the backyard, or taking on the three boys next door in "some big battles" on the street.

Such was the level of competition between the brothers, van Berlo cites Jay and Mitch as the biggest influences on his football career.

Jay is 22 and an emerging AFL player with Fremantle. He was elevated to the Dockers' senior list this season and kicked four goals against the Western Bulldogs on Anzac Day.

Mitch, 17, aspires to follow the path his brothers have beaten into the AFL and is playing with West Perth's WAFL Colts side.
  
Given how close he was with his brothers and parents, van Berlo said moving to Adelaide as an 18-year-old was a wrench. But it forced him to grow up more quickly than he otherwise might have, he says.

"It probably is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life," he says.

"But I think it forced me to grow up a bit. Living away from home, not having mum to do the cooking, the cleaning, the washing and everything you're used to, it certainly makes you appreciate everything your parents have done for you growing up.

"It also makes you take responsibility for those things yourself. But you'd probably have to ask mum to see whether I actually did mature."

The sixth Crows captain, van Berlo is the first non-South Australian to hold the post. With fellow West Australian Domenic Cassisi Port Adelaide's captain since 2009, both of South Australia's AFL clubs are led by Sandgropers.

Van Berlo says this fact attracted media attention following his appointment, but little has been made of it since. Which underlines how truly national the competition has become, he says.

In this environment, the Crows have to ensure they are doing everything in their power to retain their interstate recruits, van Berlo says.

"We have to just back in our culture at the footy club to make sure everyone hangs around," he says.

"The club's got a very good system in place to make new players from interstate feel at home as much as possible when they first get here, because homesickness is a big part of footy now.

"We try and keep them busy and get them to settle into the Adelaide lifestyle as quickly as possible.

"But we're very lucky here that we have great support from our supporter base and the whole state in general - I can't think of any better place to play footy."

Just as you imagine Craig might say there's no better person than van Berlo to help homesick teenagers adjust to life in the AFL.

Van Berlo can also be trusted to play the off-field diplomat.

The AFL Record quizzed him on some of football's most contentious topics and his responses were considered and balanced, reflecting an understanding of both sides of the debate.

On the issue of player privacy, van Berlo says the "short answer" is the media has become too intrusive in recent years.

But he qualifies that answer on two fronts. First, he acknowledges the role the media plays in marketing the game. "The stories that hit the papers are ultimately what people want to read about, they feed their interest in the game," he says.

Second, he says dealing with media scrutiny was an inescapable part of being an AFL player these days.

"Whether you like it or not, as soon as you come into the AFL system you're under scrutiny, whether it be your lifestyle, your playing form or any other things about your life," he says.

"You've got to be aware of that and come to grips with it pretty early on in your career because it's not going away."

On the substitute rule that was introduced this year, van Berlo says reducing the interchange bench from four players to three and a substitute will increase player fatigue and make for a "tough season".

But he is not complaining, just calling it as he sees it. He is also quick to add: "Every team is in the same boat."

On the proposed move of AFL games from AAMI Stadium in West Lakes to the Adelaide Oval from 2014, he is excited but mindful of some supporters' attachment to the club's home of 20 years.

"It would be a great move for us to try something new and move in close to the city," he says.

"But obviously we'll still be based in West Lakes at our facility there."

Any Crows supporter can tell you about how van Berlo sets the standard for his teammates on the training track, most notably in running time trials. 

Van Berlo has led the way in the Crows' distance running for some years, surviving a challenge this pre-season from first-year rookie Sam Martyn, who came to the club with an impressive athletics background.

But van Berlo says while he also excelled in cross-country and athletics at school, he never enjoyed it.

"I think mum would probably vouch for me here, I hated running," he says.

"It was something I was pretty good at, but I got pretty worked up and nervous about it.

"Footy appealed to me far more, being able to play in a team game and run around with my mates."

Van Berlo has assumed the captaincy at an interesting time in the club's history. Last year, club greats Andrew McLeod, Tyson Edwards and Goodwin retired, as did long-time club favourite Brett Burton.

Meanwhile, 2008 All-Australian and best and fairest winner Nathan Bock was snared by new club Gold Coast as one of its out-of-contract players under its recruiting concessions.

Together, these departures represent a significant exodus of talent.

But don't mention the football cliché rebuilding. It's not a theory Craig has ever believed in. And van Berlo is of a like mind.

"Part of the thing I love about 'Craigy', his coaching philosophy and the football club in general, is they don't believe in going through a development phase," he says. "Every year I've been here, Craigy has put high expectations on us and I think that's part of the reason we're able to get such good results out of our young players.

"They come into the system and they know what's expected of them from day one. Whether you're a first-year player or a 15-year player, the expectations are the same.

"Craigy's philosophy is, 'The game doesn't know how old you are', which makes perfect sense."

Not surprisingly then, van Berlo speaks excitedly about what lies ahead for the Crows' young list.

Despite losing so much experience and talent last year, he is confident Adelaide has the players to take it "back to where we should be". That is, near the top of the ladder.

And when van Berlo says that, he is talking in the present sense.

His confidence is built on the way some of the club's youngsters seized opportunities they were given late last year when Edwards had retired and McLeod and Goodwin were sidelined for extended periods.

They included 2010 debutants Phil Davis, Ricky Henderson and Matthew Jaensch; Rory Sloane, who had played one game before last season; and Chris Schmidt, who made his Crows debut after playing two games with the Brisbane Lions in 2007-08. 

Van Berlo also sensed a "real" energy and enthusiasm among the group over the pre-season, particularly among its youngsters who, again, seemed to sense the opportunities awaiting them in 2011. 

After a bright start to the season against Hawthorn - when van Berlo kicked a last-quarter goal that sealed a 20-point win - Adelaide has struggled since its round-two bye.

A home loss to Fremantle was followed by a galling capitulation to cross-town rival Port Adelaide, the Crows surrendering a 34-point second-quarter lead to lose by 32 points.

Last round, Adelaide showed great heart to come back from a 27-point quarter-time deficit against Carlton to hit the front late in the game, before going down by six points.
 
These results are not surprising. Young sides tend to be inconsistent. But there's one thing Crows fans can count on this season: with van Berlo at the helm, their team will not want for leadership.