Red and WHITE – Craig White column July 25

I HAVE come back to the club this year knowing that I have to have a hand in fast tracking some of the younger guys coming along, and a little bit more pressure goes on guys like myself, Cooky, Millsy and Gumby to make sure that happens because we are really the only experienced players left.

In terms of leadership, I first felt myself developing in that way in the back end of 2007. John Dimmer showed a fair bit of confidence in me and gave me some bigger, and more important roles around the club and then in 2008 they took the plunge in an official leadership role.

Always as a kid, I enjoyed the leadership roles and at school I was in the leadership groups and what not there, so it's a bit part and parcel for me. But in terms of here at South Fremantle, it was in 2008 when I officially became a leader and getting in there started in the back end of 2007.

Up until coming back to the club this year, I have always had some great leaders around the South Fremantle Football Club since I have been playing but the most important year for me was in 2004 when I played a lot of reserves footy and so did Shaun Tinsley and Zane Parsons. Not only did we have leaders in our league team, but we also had them in the reserves team and that's probably one area where the whole of the WAFL has slipped in recent years.

There doesn’t seem to be too many older guys hanging around playing reserves footy anymore where as I learned a lot just from playing almost a full season with guys like Shaun Tinsley and Zane Parsons back in 2004.

It is different now in terms of players hanging in there to earn your spot by playing reserves as well. Sometimes the kids get instantly thrown in the deep end without playing much reserves footy, but I would put my development down to hugely playing a lot of reserves footy at the start of my career.

David Gault and Ray Smithers would be the two leaders I have played with who really helped in my development. Smithers became a big part of our leadership in 2009 when Peter Worsfold got our program up and running, and Ray really took a massive step in terms of his development as a leader and kind of showed us who hadn’t had AFL experience the way you need to operate to be a leader while performing on the track, off the field and on game day as well.

Now that Andrew McCarrey is retired as well from the club, I'm the third oldest player at the club and that's a bit of a scary thought. When you start and are coming through when you are 23, 24 or 25 you still think that you are a young guy and even now I'm not old in a real world sense, but at the footy club everyone tells me how old I am. I don’t really feel it, but you do quickly learn that you are the third oldest at the club and need to show the way for the rest of the group.

I really enjoyed coaching over in Sydney last year as well and it's something that I will definitely do again, but whether or not I do it again soon is another thing. I think I will concentrate on my career outside of footy for the next few years and then once I'm established there, and can free up some time I will look to get into coaching.

It definitely helped my leadership and opened up my eyes up in terms of what coaches go through with selection and man management so it was really good for me overall.

This is such a young team I'm part of at South Fremantle at the moment obviously, but a few of the younger guys like Nick Borovac, Adam McIntosh and Adam Carter are really taking the next step with their leadership.

Then young guys on the field like Jacob Martinez and Tim Kelly are starting to show leadership with the way they are playing football, but those other guys have taken on the roles of leadership really well this year and are going to be a big part of the club.

A lot of those young leaders are in the back-line and played a lot of footy together last year as well so they are starting to get around the 40-game experience mark and once they get another year under their belts, they will know each other inside out and we will be a good side.

Looking back to when we were such a good side in 2009 and 2010, that's when myself, the two Hams boys, Heady, Northy and all these guys had a good understanding down back and this group is one or two years from being there, but if they can stick together it will be a really strong group.

We feel like things are starting to come together now as well. it's a young group and it took a while to get going at the start of the year and we struggled to find the consistent effort we needed, but Hase has really focused in on three or four main areas that we are concentrating on and that's not just changing every week like it might have earlier in the year. There are three or four KPIs that we have to meet that we know will hold us in good stead in each game.

By Craig White