There have been calls for Nat Fyfe to hand over the captaincy with the Fremantle skipper battling injury concerns.
The two-time Brownlow Medalists rough run with injury may affect his captaincy next year as the Fremantle star is likely to be on the bench for the next couple of months.
After signs of an infection from his shoulder surgery, Fyfe will attend hospital every day for intravenous antibiotics which means he can not train and sweat until the infection subsides.
Former Essendon skipper Tim Watson believes Fyfe's "ability to play" is "going to affect his leadership", and told SEN Breakfast that "there was no way known that he’s going to be the captain of Fremantle next season."
“How can you be under those circumstances? How can you be captain?" Watson said.
Fyfe has been skipper of the Fremantle since 2017 and led the club over 80 times however Watson said the pressure of dealing with injury besides captaining a team would not work.
“If he’s going into the season underdone if he’s going in with a real question mark about his ability to be able to play again in the way that he played previously and have that pressure on him," he said.
Fyfe described his shoulder injury as "blown to pieces” saying has not been able to run for four months.
The 30-year old described the prospect to 7News Perth as "pretty grim" and is likely to struggle to catch up with the amount of training he is set to miss going into the 2022 season.
He had the same surgery on his left shoulder with the same surgeon and did not experience any ongoing problems however has become a small statistic of shoulder operations that "do not go to plan."
“There’s just a small percentage of these shoulder operations that don’t work and unfortunately I’ve become a statistic of that," he said.
