Whether you’re a professional athlete or a recreational sportsman or woman down the village green, it takes a strong personality to captain a team.
There’s the need to inspire your teammates to give their all, settle inter-team disputes where they arise and act as a PR frontman or woman for your club. In some sports, like cricket, there’s even the need to decide potentially game-changing tactics like which bowlers to use when and where to position fielders.
In theory, lightening that load by appointing co-captains, i.e. two players to shoulder the burden, is a good idea. Two heads are better than one, as they say, and it also spreads risk if one of the captains has a bad day at the metaphorical office.
It’s an approach that Welsh rugby union head coach Warren Gatland is certainly hoping works. He’s named Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake as co-captains for Wales’ bid for the World Cup in France in 2023, speaking of the duo’s friendship as a sign that they could share the role effectively.
“They complement each other well. They are good mates and have a good relationship. It’s a good opportunity,” Gatland said, before admitting that it’s ‘something that I have never done before’.
So have other teams had co-captains before, and how successful can the strategy be?
A Tale of Two
Rugby union is perhaps one of the sports in which having two captains can work. That’s because there are two distinct units within the team – backs and forwards – which need their own leadership and guidance.
Morgan and Lake are both forwards, so that’s not the thinking behind their elevation to co-captaincy, although Eddie Jones did embrace the philosophy when naming Owen Farrell and Dylan Hartley as co-captains for England’s autumn internationals in 2018.
“In England, the job of the captain is probably the biggest job in the world in terms of rugby, so they can share that responsibility which will help the players in their own preparation,” Jones said.
“The responsibility for the captain in terms of the media here is far greater than in any other country. What I want is to make sure it doesn’t overburden them in their own preparation, so having two co-captains allows us to spread that load.”
The experiment seemed to work, with England winning three of their four autumn internationals with the duo in charge – the only defeat being a one-point loss to New Zealand.
And Jones admitted that he would have used Farrell and Hartley as co-captains for the World Cup in 2019 – until, that is, the latter suffered a long-term injury that saw him omitted from the squad. Farrell captained the team as an individual instead.
After leaving his role as England head coach, Jones was appointed to the same position by Australia – and it wasn’t long before he was naming co-captains again, this time Michael Hooper and James Slipper. The Wallabies’ results at the World Cup will determine how successful that proves to be.
Continuing the trend for co-captains in rugby were Edinburgh, who appointed Grant Gilchrist and Jamie Ritchie for the 2022/23 campaign. However, the team disappointed in the BKT United Rugby Championship and were knocked out of the European Rugby Champions Cup in the last 16.
Two’s Company
Away from rugby, England’s netball team also enjoyed a spell with co-captains.
Serena Guthrie, whose first game as joint-leader coincided with her 100th international cap, shared the captaincy with Laura Malcolm, who had previously acted as the team’s vice-captain.
Guthrie retired in 2022 while Malcolm also stepped away from the role, with a new pair of co-captains – Layla Guscoth and Natalie Metcalf – appointed in 2023.
And it worked like a charm, with England cruising to the World Cup final – their first final appearance – where they were defeated by Australia.
When the captain of the United States’ women’s football team, Becky Sauerbrunn, suffered a foot injury so severe that she was forced to withdraw from the World Cup, the USWNT’s head coach Vlatko Andonovski had a tough decision to make.
How do you replace such an inspirational leader? Well, you take a leaf out of the books of rugby and netball and appoint two captains instead.
Andonovski announced Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan as co-captains – one of the very few times such a move has been made in professional football. Horan took the armband and went up for the coin toss before each of her team’s games, but the camp was quick to stress that Morgan would play a pivotal leadership role as well.
Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan on the pitch for the pre-tournament betting favourites, with the United States losing in a penalty shootout to Sweden in the Round of 16.