Hoffman hopes to play leading role again
If you thought the Warriors’ struggles of the past year may have dampened Ryan Hoffman’s enthusiasm for the captaincy, think again.
The Australian veteran has affirmed his desire to continue leading the club in 2017 and is keen to extend his stay at Mt Smart.
Despite having just the one season under his belt with the Warriors at the time, Hoffman was the logical choice to take the reins when Simon Mannering stepped down prior to the start of the 2016 campaign.
A hard-nosed back-rower who is not afraid to tell it how it is, Hoffman was part of the leadership group at the Melbourne Storm, where he won a grand final and went on to play for NSW and Australia.
It was his first foray into fulltime captaincy and, by his own admission, it was a rough initiation.
‘‘I certainly think I got better throughout the year but it took me a bit to get used to,’’ said Hoffman, who recently returned from a trip to the United States, where he visited several professional and college sports organisations.
‘‘I needed to find out what type of captain I was and what was going to work for me and what was going to work for the team. But once I started to get a feel of that I found I got better.’’
In what was a terribly frustrating season, not once did Hoffman try to sugar-coat the Warriors’ performances and led the club well during the prescription drugs and energy drinks saga.
But he struggled to contain his emotions towards referees at times and failed to galvanise the players as they lost the last four games to again miss the playoffs.
That capitulation ultimately resulted in sweeping change throughout the club, the main one being Andrew McFadden replaced by Stephen Kearney as head coach.
Hoffman knows Kearney well having played alongside and under him at the Storm and will respect whatever decision he makes.
But he is hoping the captaincy remains constant.
‘‘I don’t trust and respect anyone more in rugby league than Stephen Kearney so however he wants to approach it I’ll be completely happy with,’’ he added. ‘‘But certainly, I love being the captain of the Warriors and look to do it again.’’