Nick Donaghey growing into the role of Yackandandah captain under coach Darren Holmes

He's always tried to lead by example at Yackandandah but finding the right words to address the playing group for the first time was a completely different matter.

"I didn't, really," Donaghey admitted.

"I stumbled a few times when I spoke.

"On the field, I feel like I've always been a natural leader but I definitely had to work on the verbal side of it.

"I had a good year in 2019 and then in 2020, when Darren Holmes came on (as coach), he wanted to have a new face so he asked me.

"I've always been pretty quiet and at the start of last year, I was still finding my bearings.

"It took me a few games to get used to the captaincy but after the success of last year, how tight the group's become and how much we've grown together, I've really taken on that role a lot more.

"I can't do it without Ben McIntosh and David Price behind me though.

"It's more of a trifecta and this year, we've all taken training without 'Holmer'.

"He's probably going to step back a bit this year and let the leadership group take over the reins a bit.

"It gets forced on you and you have to step up."

Donaghey's voice is certainly one of the most prominent at pre-season training, with the Roos aiming to build on last season's Tallangatta league minor premiership.

"I've been at Yack for five years now and that was the first time, in seniors, that I've seen real success," Donaghey said.

"We always had something but we could never build on it.

"Last year, when 'Holmer' came in, his main idea was to bring back the young blokes from our club and have a whole new structure.

"He brought me up as captain and Benny Mac as vice-captain, trying to get a bunch of young blokes up and we were able to build from that.

"I couldn't believe how well we were playing.

"We wanted to make finals and I guess it helped that we haven't had success for the last 10 years because we came with the mentality of 'we don't care what happens out there, we're just going to play as hard as we can' and it seemed to really show.

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"In 2018, we only won four games. It's hard to motivate yourself to get to training and rock up every week at times like that but last year, we had the right mindset.

"Our focus wasn't winning games, it was getting better.

"A big concern for us this year is not getting ahead of ourselves.

"There were some really tough games last year; Rutherglen took it up to us, Dederang were taking it up to us and Chiltern had us beat for two quarters.

"At our worst, we can lose to anyone, but at our best, I believe we can beat anyone.

"I think we showed that last year.

"The test now is to see whether we can sustain that work-rate."

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