By Dan A

The Captain Of The Week column looks at some of the top candidates as your DT captain. With the big names all dominating last week, it seems we have plenty of choice in round 17:

The Smokie: Daniel Kerr: while his form has been solid, a 90 last week isn't really captain worthy. But is 90 against Brett Kirk really that bad? Nobody scores well against the Swans.

A few things look like they may go Kerr's way his way this week. With Cross out, West hobbling around and the Doggies having a terrible ruck division, West Coast are going to dominate the clearances and Kerr is the man to gain from it. You could do a lot worse.

4. Jonathan Brown: Recent history against Collingwood has not been the best, however it is hard to discount his red-hot form. 10 goals for a whopping score of 155 (on the back of 128 the week before) shows how much Brisbane are playing through him.

Expect Brown to play the same role this week but he will find it a little tougher with a more accountable Collingwood midfield cutting off his delivery. Has had two great weeks but I have my doubts.

 
3. Kane Cornes: In the past has done reasonably well against Melbourne and like Brown has had two monster performances in a row. That alone makes him a good choice for captain.

I do have some reservations; in the last four weeks, Kornes has been played primarily as a tagger. With the king of cheap kicks playing a more accountable role on Simon Black and Scott West, we saw his numbers drop quite significantly.

More recently he faced Chris Judd who's playing on crutches and Nathan Foley (who found it hard to kick to himself). This allowed old cheap kicks to return to his best. Kornes is coming up against an undermanned Demons midfield so may pull another big one but do you really want to go with a captain playing a negative role? A bit risky in my book.

2. Dean Cox: In the past has not done fantastically against the Bulldogs, but he’s in red hot form. In the last two weeks he has faced Brendan Lade and Peter Everitt, two of the premier ruckmen in the league.

Cox should enjoy coming up against a battler in Peter Street and I expect him to dominate around the ground. An excellent captain choice this week - he should reward you with plenty.

1. Jimmy Bartel: Historically Jimmy has done quite well against Fremantle. His return to form last week (after missing a lot of game time from head injuries) signals Bartel as a good captain candidate.

This week Bartel should go head to head with Paul Hasleby while Gary Ablett once again draws the tag.

With that in mind, I expect him to back up his 115 from last week with another big week, racking up plenty of clearances and marks in the backline. It’s hard to go past this year’s DT superstar.