Nathan van Berlo has taken his game to another level since assuming the captaincy, says dual Crows premiership skipper and now senior assistant coach Mark Bickley.

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Van Berlo was first identified as a future leader at the 2004 AFL Draft Camp - several months before being selected by Adelaide with pick No.24 in the National Draft. The Western Australian was voted into the Club’s leadership group for the first time ahead of the start of the 2008 season, and as been part of the group every year since.

In December 2010, at only 25 years of age, van Berlo became the youngest captain in the Crows’ history when he took over the top job from retired champion Simon Goodwin.

He endured a tough initiation in his first season as skipper last year, with Adelaide recording its worst-ever season. Van Berlo’s sole coach at AFL level, Neil Craig, departed as a result.

Despite his personal circumstances, Craig encouraged his captain to embrace the hardship.

“‘Craigy’ told me that, throughout adversity you learn the most about yourself, and develop as an individual and as a leader,” said van Berlo, who will play his 150^th game at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

“I tried to embrace that experience, even though there were times when it certainly wasn’t enjoyable at all. Looking back on it now, I learned some valuable lessons … I think the entire playing group did.

“It hardened us as a group and more than anything has showed us we don’t want to go back to playing like that, or getting those sorts of results.”

Bickley, who returned to West Lakes as an assistant in 2009, has witnessed van Berlo’s growth as a player and a leader firsthand.

“I knew when Nathan was made captain that it would be really good for him,” Bickley said.

“He puts a lot of expectation on himself. I knew he would have even greater expectations as captain and that’s exactly what’s happened. I’m not surprised at all with the way he’s performed in the last year or so. He’s taken his game to another level.

“There are very few people, who can do that. Some people feel the burden of the captaincy and their on-field performance suffers as a result, but when you have the quality of character like Nathan you get the opposite effect and you actually get better.

“I think he’ll continue to do that and he’ll be a great captain of this football club.”

The Crows revamped their leadership program at the end of last season, appointing Paddy Steinfort in a full-time Leadership Development role. The process for selecting players to be part of the Club’s leadership group changed, but the result remained the same with van Berlo the unanimous choice to retain the captaincy for a second season.

Brenton Sanderson said he’d been impressed by the hard-working midfielder, who has excelled in a dual attacking/negating onball role this season, from the moment he accepted the position as senior coach at Adelaide.

“Nathan’s a fantastic on-field leader and a great role model off the field. He lives the perfect professional athlete’s life, and he’s as clean as they come,” Sanderson said.

“What we (coaches) love about him most is that he just understands what we expect from our systems and structures. He’s almost an extension of the coaching group - a coach out on the field. He just understands how we want the game played.

“He’s a great communicator and very level-headed. He thinks his way through things out on the field. He’s an absolute star in that regard.”