Rocky has done quite a few long interviews on Ruggamatrix. He also comes accros as a laconic, thoughtful, having a very dry sense of humour (something that the media struggles with) and a hard task master on himself and his team mates.
Link in another interview while the Tahs coach called him their most professional football who didn't shirk his work on or off the field (training, food diaries, hydration, appintments etc) - so a good role model.
I don't doubt for a second that Rocky has a great work ethic, and every player looks up to him. His public and on-field persona is problematic, but I don't have any objections to him becoming captain if the team want it.
He does need to get better at the PR stuff, or have someone else do it. It's easy to write it off as window dressing, but that could not be more wrong. The captain is the key figure in how the public relates to the players, and it is no coincidence that every other franchise's captain is a warm, friendly and well-loved figure (except the Brumbies at the moment, but both Mowen and Moore have aspects of it). Rocky is not that and most of it is his own doing.
Pocock, Mortlock and Horwill put in the hours off the field to create an image of their side that the public can get around. And they largely do. Too often the Waratahs and the NSWRU are seen as cold, heartless and calculating, lacking in passion both on and off the field. Putting Elsom as captain is not going to help this, so Mitchell, Barnes, Tatafu and Robinson really need to step up on the media front.
And you can write off the whingeing journos all you want, but Rocky's cold pressers end up hurting the Tahs more than anyone else.
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