By Lachlan Geleit
Kane Cornes has urged Sydney to appoint Isaac Heeney as captain for the 2025 season.
The 28-year-old is coming off a career-best season in 2024 where he was clearly one of the competition’s elite players and Cornes thinks that he’s now the logical choice as skipper with his play setting the standard for his teammates.
Cornes also believes that Heeney deserves the position more than Callum Mills, with the current skipper enduring a tough 2024 season from an individual perspective where he struggled with health and form before missing the Grand Final loss with a hamstring injury.
“Why isn't Isaac Heeney the sole captain of Sydney?” Cornes asked on SEN Breakfast.
“I think he's the logical captain. Go and watch Sydney play and if you knew nothing about football and you were sitting in the stands and you go, ‘Hey, tell me who you think the captain is of this club’, it’s Isaac Heeney. It’s not Callum Mills.
“With Callum Mills, everything that's happened there with his body and the issues that he's had, it’s time (to hand it over).”
While Cornes admits his call might be harsh given Mills has captained for three years, with only one of them being as the sole leader in 2024, he thinks that Heeney and then Errol Gulden are more deserving of the role.
“I know it's been one year, so it might be harsh, and Sydney has always had unique sort of leadership models with dual captains and all of that,” Cornes said.
“But he should have lost it (captaincy) then (when he was injured wrestling a teammate) and if not then, it should be now.
“Isaac Heeney and then Errol Gulden should be the next captains of Sydney.”
Sydney opens their 2025 season with an Opening Round clash against Hawthorn at the SCG on Friday, March 7.
Crafted by Project Diamond