Morgan tip for Cowboys skipper

NORTH Queensland’s greatest prop, Matt Scott, will be stripped of the captaincy under coach Paul Green’s plan to install a new leadership structure at the Cowboys.

It can be revealed Green is poised to drop a leadership bombshell, scrapping the Cowboys’ eightyear co-captaincy model in a move that will see Scott replaced by a single full-time skipper.

Green has kept his leadership blueprint secret as North Queensland prepare to unveil their new captain at the club’s gala season launch in Townsville on March 8.

But Scott’s superb premiership-winning reign as skipper is over, with Jordan McLean emerging as a challenger to chief playmaker Michael Morgan to lead the Cowboys in the post-Johnathan Thurston era.

It is understood Morgan will clinch the captaincy, but Green is a huge fan of McLean’s leadership potential.

Scott and Thurston were co-captains since 2011 and skippered the Cowboys to their premiership triumph in 2015.

Scott was expected to be retained as skipper this season but after making a successful comeback from neck surgery against the Titans on Saturday night, the 33-year-old revealed he is ready to be dethroned.

In a sign of the leadership winds of change sweeping the Cowboys, Scott’s front-row cohort McLean led the side out in their 22-16 trial defeat of the Titans at Sunshine Coast Stadium.

“I don’t think we will go towards co-captains (this year),” Scott, pictured, said.

“Greeny is pretty keen to go to a single captaincy model.

“We need to prepare for the future. The best way to do that is to hand the captaincy over to someone else and for me to take a step back.

“Greeny is holding his cards close to his chest but Macca led the team out (on Saturday night), so that’s a bit of an indication of the way Greeny is leaning.”