Kurt Answers The Call

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday August 27, 2008

ROBERT DILLON RUGBY LEAGUE

KURT Gidley hopes the

mentoring he has received

from all-time greats

Andrew Johns and Danny

Buderus will stand him in

good stead as he prepares

to lead Newcastle

into a new era against

Melbourne Storm at

EnergyAustralia Stadium

on Saturday night.

Gidley was yesterday

crowned the new king

of the Knights after

champion hooker

Buderus suffered a torn

biceps playing against

North Queensland last

weekend, an injury that

effectively ended his NRL

career.

Buderuss successor

as skipper came down

to a choice between

international forward

Steve Simpson and

Gidley, who in the

past two seasons has

established himself as

one of the games elite

players.

After consulting with

Newcastle management,

Knights coach Brian

Smith broke the news

at yesterdays training

session that Gidley would

inherit the leadership

duties.

The new skipper made

a brief speech to his

teammates and received

a unanimous round of

applause.

With Bedsy and

Joey, I think theyre the

two prime examples of

leading with their actions

on the field, Gidley said

after training.

Continued on Page 74

Gidley answers call for Knights

From Page 80

"I've been lucky enough to have been captained by two of the best who have ever played the game, so I couldn't learn from anyone any better."

Smith said at this point Buderus, who is joining Leeds Rhinos next year, will remain as club captain and Gidley's tenure is only until the end of this season.

But it appears certain that the 26-year-old Kangaroo will captain Newcastle until at least the end of 2011, when his contract with the club expires. He follows in the illustrious footsteps of Newcastle's previous long-term skippers, Sam Stewart, Michael Hagan, Mark Sargent, Paul Harragon, Tony Butterfield, Johns and Buderus.

"It's something I never thought would happen as a kid, but something I'm certainly proud of," Gidley said.

"Captaining your home town in the NRL is an honour and I'll be giving it my best shot."

Gidley said he still expected "a lot of senior input" from players such as Simpson, Adam MacDougall and Ben Cross.

Smith said that, after discussions with officials and coaching staff, it was agreed that "Kurt ticks all the boxes".

"We felt like we had two outstanding candidates and couldn't really go wrong either way," Smith said.

"Simmo is obviously the senior player in the club, and we probably made the call with a bit of an eye to the future. But the biggest thing is we feel Kurt has a real confidence about him that he is displaying in his verbal leadership.

"Simmo is a real leader in a true sense of the word, with the 'do as I do' type stuff. Nothing is going to stop Simmo from continuing to do that.

"But we felt that giving Kurt the added responsibility might even, in some ways, generate even more talk.

"And with a young team, it's important to have that sort of verbal leadership.

"Bedsy had plenty of it. It's probably just different personality types, and a bit of what we feel the team needs.

"Simmo, as you would expect, was pretty gracious about it all. When I told him Kurt had got the nod, he was the first one to go and shake his hand and express his willingness to work with him."

Asked whether the captaincy would help Gidley take his game to a new level, Smith said it would be hard to imagine him playing better than he has this season.

But he felt Newcastle's younger players gained confidence from Gidley's positive attitude and inherent enthusiasm.

"You want a captain to be able to help young players or blokes who are lacking a bit of form or confidence," he said.

"Part of the captain's role is bringing them into the fold and trying to build that little bit extra in their game.

"I think Kurt's ready to do that. He can relate to those sort of situations because he's young enough to clearly remember what it's like to be making his way in the game."

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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