Rutten, added to the eight-man leadership group this season and viewed by many as a future Adelaide captain, said Ricciuto was a strong person on and off the field.
“He leads by example and he’s very demanding of himself and the rest of the team. He’s been such a strong character around the club,” Rutten said.
“The way the club is going, he really drives the standard and pushes the club to get better and really makes sure that the players stay on top of their game. He has been playing in the forward line and he takes new information on, continuing to learn and he wants to learn.”
Rutten said he had relished the opportunity to learn from the rest of the leadership group.
“Since been involved in the leadership group this year, it has given me a chance to hopefully accelerate my leadership skills,” he said. “Spending more time with guys like Mark (Ricciuto), Simon Goodwin and Ben Hart has hopefully improved my leadership skills.”
But Rutten says he has put little thought into captaining the Adelaide Football Club in the future. However, he doesn’t believe that the club will expect someone of the same mould as Ricciuto to inherit the position.
“Whoever takes the role, I don’t think the club expects them to be another Mark Ricciuto,” he said. “They’ll expect them to use their skills and lead by example on and off the field but I don’t think there will be any expectation of the next captain to be exactly the same (as Ricciuto)”.
Rutten, All-Australian full back in 2005, has continued to take on the best opposition tall forward and has won the battle on most occasions this season.
“I’ve been happy with the way I’ve been playing this year and will hopefully continue to build and hopefully play some better footy,” he said.
Match-ups and team structure have seen the 23-year-old play further up the ground in recent weeks.
“I’ve spent more time around centre half back and that has just been through the opposition structure of their forward line,” he said. “It means that someone like Scotty Stevens or Nathan Bassett has to play from the goal square. That is something I didn’t do quite so much last year. I played the majority of my junior football at either centre half back or centre half forward so I quite enjoy spending time up the ground”.
