THE transition from class clown to captain hasn't been an easy one for Brocke Argus.
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An East Wagga-Kooringal man through and through, it was a dream come true for Argus when he was handed the captaincy by coach Matt Hard at the start of last year.
The move would have been seen as a gamble by many given, while talented on field, Argus is not ashamed to admit that football always had been a bit of a joke for him.
But 18 months into the role and with the Hawks sitting in second spot on the table, Argus is happy with how far he's come as captain.
"Last year, I wouldn't say I hated it, but it took me until two or three rounds before finals to work out where I stood and what kind of captain I wanted to be," Argus said.
"As far as how much input I needed to have and how much I need to worry about my own game because you can get a bit caught up in it. I've obviously always wanted to be captain of the club since I come here, there's a lot of family history in it."
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Argus admits the transition was something that was discussed with Hard and something he needed to work at.
"That was probably the biggest thing Matt and I talked about, it used to be me and (Nathan Scott) being the larrikins but there's a time and a place," he said.
"It was always a joke at footy, everything was a joke, everything was fun and what not but once you take that captaincy role you realise that how you're travelling at the time falls upon your shoulders. So if you's aren't winning, or aren't winning convincingly, or aren't playing to the game plan, it's your role to make sure it happens and whatever you've got to do to make it happen, sometimes you've got to pull the trigger on not being the funny guy and making sure everyone's doing the right thing and putting in 100 per cent at training."
The 30-year-old explains he is not the only Hawks player that's been required to step up over this year.
"We obviously lost Alex Rogers, Ben Absolum, Brenton Roberts, Ben Cadzow, there's four players who can identify a turn of momentum in a game or a time you need to sit on the footy or a time you need to let all your guns go and hit the scoreboard," he said.
"I guess a lot of that's fallen to a lot of other guys in the team and a lot of different players have had to stand up, like (Kyle North-Flanagan), Nath Scott's been there for a while and he's had to step up again, go from being the larrikin all the time to identifying those key parts of the game.
"Harry Fitzsimmons, Nick Curran, Max Tiernan, all guys that have been there for three or four years now that weren't getting carried along but they were getting told what to do by the likes of Benno and that but now it's their time to be identifying it themselves and they have really stood up."
The second-placed Hawks take on third-placed Barellan at Barellan on Saturday.
Argus says trips to Barellan have never been easy, let alone this year now the Two Blues have risen into genuine contenders.
"We've never played an easy game over there," he said.
"We've even drawn over there once. I don't think we've ever really, as such, blown them off the park. They are always thereabouts and if you're not committed and 100 per cent switched on all game, they'll kick themselves back in very quick.
"They're bullish at the footy all of the time. If you take a backward step you'll end up getting hurt because they'll hit you hard. That's always been one of their traits.
"It's a two hour trip over there, you get bashed around and drive two hours home. It's not something you look forward to."
Argus said while the Hawks are second on the ladder, they're not playing great football.
"We've got a few injuries and that obviously. Where we're sitting on the ladder, it's not a bad spot to be sitting but as far as the footy goes, we haven't really strung a game together yet," he said.
"Round one we let Marrar run all over us, round two we let Temora back in during the second or third quarter so we didn't play a game there. Round three was horrible. We missed shot four goals on goal in the first quarter then basically let North Wagga play their style, that free-running footy, we didn't push them into the contest, didn't try to stop them in anyway and then other than that we haven't really strung games together. The Rock we got out of jail free really, they were beating us all game."
He said it is a positive to be in second spot when they still have so much improvement in them.
"That's the way I've been trying to talk to the boys about where we're at at the moment," he said.
"Coming into these winter months where you're trying to get all the boys to training, you might be a bit low on numbers some nights, you're just trying to get that morale up, trying to keep everyone interested and involved.
"You're trying to let them see that big piece of pie at the end of the tunnel but it does get hard and you do find that you're repeating yourself all of the time. It is hard but you've got to have a look at the big picture and see there is something big at the end of the tunnel, we've probably put a half together for the year and we're sitting second on the ladder."
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