It was a genuine mix of the established and the brand new, when the Fitzroy coaches named their 2017 captains and leadership groups on Saturday night at the season launch at the Fitzroy Victoria Bowling and Sports Club.

Nick Mitchell named an extended leadership group which reflected the mix of experience in the senior squad, with Rory Angiolella taking on the captaincy role solo for 2017. The leadership role is nothing new to Rory, who has been captain for the past five years.

Tom Cheshire and Corbin Stevic are the vice captains, with Max Davie, Jules Turner and Aiden Burke rounding out an extended leadership group.

Mick Symons, Fitzroy-ACU Women 1 coach, announced Gemma Minuz would be the first woman to captain Fitzroy-ACUs team in the new VAFA competition you can read more from Gemma below. The Womens Squad elected a leadership group of Hilary Grubb, Emilie Goegan, Luci Murphy and Mish Booth.

Mish, who was the inaugural winner of the Janet Graham Perpetual Trophy for the Fitzroy-ACU Women 2 team last year, will be captain of the Women 2 team.

A big thank you to Alexa Madden who has captained the womens team through its first two seasons and has spent much of the pre-season training with Box Hill.

Reserves captain is Jack Atkinson who started with the Club as an U19 in 2008.

Trent Coleman announced Jared Shaw will lead the Fitzroy Thirds team.

Tim Bell announced that James Butler (pictured with his coach) would retain the captaincy of the Under 19 (1) team, after an outstanding year in the role last year. Tim selected his captain last year but said it was a credit to James that the players had backed him in for a second year in the job.

Under 19 (2) coach Greg Coleman will wait to see how the newest Fitzroy team shapes up before deciding on the team leaders.