Hartley made new Northampton Captain

Stev_o

Possibly the crasiest deicision i have ever seen.

BBC wrote:

Saints confirm Hartley as captain
Dylan Hartley
Hartley has nine caps for England

Northampton Saints have announced that Dylan Hartley will be the club's captain for the coming season.

The 23-year-old hooker is entering his fifth season at Franklin's Gardens and was first given the captain's armband against Bristol in December 2008.

Director of rugby Jim Mallinder told the club's website: "He leads by example and is one of our key players.

"I believe he is ready for the responsibility of taking the team forward over the next few years."

Hartley made his first-team debut while still in the Saints senior academy in September 2005, and has gone on to make 89 appearances and score nine tries.

"Over the past few years Dylan has matured considerably as a player and as a person, and his appointment as captain reflects the hard work he has put in on and off the field," Mallinder continued.

I was shocked when I was asked. It's definitely going to be a great honour

Dylan Hartley

"As a current international he is one of the senior players at the club. Dylan has taken that position in his stride and has the respect of all the players in the squad."

Hartley's most recent appearance was the 2009 European Challenge Cup final victory over Bourgoin, a performance in which he won the man-of-the-match award.

"I was shocked when I was asked. It's definitely going to be a great honour. I think I know what the club is about, what it means to the town and the people of the town," said Hartley.

"I need to keep playing the way I play and there are a lot of senior players that can help me out. The reaction from the squad has been positive.

"We want to carry on from last year, be consistent with our home form, pick up our away form and keep building as a squad. We've got five new boys coming in, pre-season's gone really well and the boys have worked really hard." -

He's a great player, plays the game as a hard game and to be honest is a very old styled forward in the sense that the guy punches and elbows anything that moves. Seems a bit made thus to make him captain? Like i dunno possibly this is a incentive for him to calm down abit and stop getting YC and suspended and it might work like it helped Murphy step up and tackle for once with Leicester but still seems crazy considering they still have Lobbe and Reihana.

thomond2006

lol, Schalk Burger will be made Springbok captain next. :rolleyes:

anonymous_joe

I don't know much about the Northampton squad, but who else would they have?

The only lads I know of would have been the likes of Foden and Myler, and the Irish lads like Downey and Everitt (I think?) Best and Wilson.

The only other candidate I could think of would be hte likes of Reihena...

zAbbo

Good choice, also keeps him at the club if Leicester come along.

He's a very good player, saw him play underage and he was a monster then.

ALH-06

anonymous_joe wrote: »

The only lads I know of would have been the likes of Foden and Myler, and the Irish lads like Downey and Everitt (I think?) Best and Wilson.

Didn't Best captain the A side this summer, and do a superb job with it?

I wish Leinster would sign Best - great replacement at blindside for Rocky, and would be good to have him back in Ireland challenging for a green shirt.

anonymous_joe

ALH-06 wrote: »

Didn't Best captain the A side this summer, and do a superb job with it?

I wish Leinster would sign Best - great replacement at blindside for Rocky, and would be good to have him back in Ireland challenging for a green shirt.

Best's not been there that long and he's Irish. There'd always be a fear that he'll feck off back to Ireland. At least with Hartley this might make him stay a while longer.