KURT Gidley hopes the mentoring he has received from all-time greats Andrew Johns and Danny Buderus will stand him in good stead as he prepares to lead Newcastle into a new era against Melbourne Storm at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Saturday night.
Gidley was yesterday crowned the new king of the Knights after champion hooker Danny Buderus suffered a torn biceps playing against North Queensland last weekend, an injury that effectively ended his NRL career.
Buderus's successor as skipper came down to a choice between international forward Steve Simpson and Gidley, who in the past two seasons has established himself as one of the game's elite players.
After consulting with Newcastle management, Knights coach Brian Smith broke the news at yesterday's training session that Gidley would inherit the leadership duties.
The new skipper made a brief speech to his teammates and received a unanimous round of applause.
"With Bedsy and Joey, I think they're the two prime examples of leading with their actions on the field," Gidley said after training.
"I've been lucky enough to have been captained by two of the best who have ever played the game, so I couldn't learn from anyone any better."
Smith said at this point Buderus, who is joining Leeds Rhinos next year, will remain as club captain and Gidley's tenure is only until the end of this season.
But it appears certain that the 26-year-old Kangaroo will captain Newcastle until at least the end of 2011, when his current contract with the club expires.
He follows in the illustrious footsteps of Newcastle's previous skippers, Sam Stewart, Michael Hagan, Mark Sargent, Paul Harragon, Tony Butterfield, Johns and Buderus.
"It's something I never thought would happen as a kid, but something I'm certainly proud of," Gidley said.
"Captaining your home town in the NRL is an honour and I'll be giving it my best shot."
Gidley said he still expected "a lot of senior input" from players such as Simpson, Adam MacDougall and Ben Cross.
Smith said that after discussions with officials and coaching staff, it was agreed that "Kurt ticks all the boxes".
"We felt like we had two outstanding candidates and couldn't really go wrong either way," Smith said.
"Simmo is obviously the senior player in the club, and we probably made the call with a bit of an eye to the future.
"But the biggest thing is that we feel Kurt has a real confidence about him that he is displaying in his verbal leadership.
"Simmo is a real leader in a true sense of the word, with the 'do as I do' type stuff. Nothing is going to stop Simmo from continuing to do that.
"But we felt that giving Kurt the added responsibility might even, in some ways, generate even more talk.
"And with a young team, it's important to have that sort of verbal leadership.
"Bedsy had plenty of it. It's probably just different personality types, and a bit of what we feel the team needs.
"Simmo, as you would expect, was pretty gracious about it all.
"When I told him Kurt had got the nod, he was the first one to go and shake his hand and express his willingness to work with him."
Asked whether the captaincy would help Gidley take his game to a new level, Smith said it would be hard to imagine him playing better than he has been this season.
But the coach felt Newcastle's younger players gained confidence from Gidley's positive attitude and inherent enthusiasm.
"At the end of the day, you want a captain to be able to help young players or blokes who are lacking a bit of form or confidence," he said.
"Part of the captain's role is bringing them into the fold and trying to build that little bit extra in their game.
"I think Kurt's ready to do that. He can relate to those sort of situations because he's young enough to clearly remember what it's like to be making his way in the game."
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