Collingwood will this week vote on their next captain, reports Seven’s Mitch Cleary.
With the playing group currently on a pre-season training camp in Lorne, Cleary says the vote will take place in the coming days.
While the club has several experienced leaders in Taylor Adams, Jeremy Howe and Steele Sidebottom among others, Cleary has defender Darcy Moore as the “favourite” to take over.
“The Pies will spend this week vote on Scott Pendlebury’s successor,” Cleary told Seven News.
“Moore is favourite to become the new skipper in a group that includes Taylor Adams.
“Darcy Moore received the second-most votes behind Scott Pendlebury last year.”
While he’s been touted as the most likely candidate, Moore himself says there’s a group of his teammates that are all capable of doing the job when asked at a press conference on Monday.
“I think there’s definitely a group of us who have all got the experience and the sort of traits that are definitely capable of doing it,” Moore said
“There’s a few of us that have got some experience in the team now and some experience leading the team in the leadership group.
“So, we developed really close bonds and lots of trust amongst those sorts of senior guys.
“I think for us internally it’s a bit more about the collective of the senior guys who lead the team, and you need all of them to be on board to help drive the team forward.”
Moore’s father Peter captained the club in 1981 and 1982 and the defender says it would be a “sentimental thing” to follow in his footsteps.
“Dad was, obviously, a past captain of the club,” Moore said.
“So, it (the captaincy) is a nice sentimental thing, and we’ll just see what happens.”
While the captaincy call looms, Moore’s focus is solely on recovering from a shock bone infection that delayed his pre-season.
Even though Moore is yet to return to full training, he says he’s confident of being passed fit for Round 1.
“I am (confident of playing Round 1), I’m feeling really good so far but it’s really early days, I’m just happy to be back moving again,” Moore said.
“I am definitely building up my running, starting to build in some agility work as well and some football movements, so jumping and cutting and those sorts of things at high speed.
“Hopefully, towards the end of the pre-season, I’ll be ready to go.”
Collingwood kick off their 2023 campaign with a blockbuster Round 1 clash against Geelong at the MCG on March 17.