Nat Fyfe has reflected on the most significant changes across his six years of holding the captaincy, believing he ended his tenure as a vastly different leader to when he started.

Fremantle’s second-longest serving captain, Fyfe took the mantle from David Mundy ahead of the 2017 season at the age of 25.

Handing over the reins in an announcement to the playing group on Tuesday, Fyfe detailed that his early days in the captaincy revolved around him striving to perform at the highest level to inspire his teammates.

However, his progression across the six years in charge led him to realise the role of captain had a greater purpose.

“When I took over I was 25 or 26, I was mid-age group in terms of the rest of the team," Fyfe told 6PR.

“In time, I started to grasp the concept of bringing other people along. It’s easy to do lip service to that and say that’s what leadership is, but until you get a handle on how you get people to follow you and provide a safe environment for people to get the most out of their journeys…it’s a hard thing to do.

“As I evolved, I felt like that was something that I grew awareness in.

“Role modelling or setting standards is just a small part and at the start that was probably what I thought leadership was.

“By the end I came to realise that my role as a leader wasn’t necessarily to inspire, it was most often to make the players feel safe, supported and free to be able to play their footy as best they could.”

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Fyfe also addressed the ‘expectations’ of captaincy and acknowledged it was largely driven by a self-imposed pressure to deliver.

The 31-year-old said he is feeling refreshed and eager to lean in to a more permanent position up forward in 2023.

“Most of the burden or expectation or mental load is felt at a subconscious level,” Fyfe said.

“If you talk about meetings and speeches and media calls there is a time commitment involved, but the real weight comes from that expectation you carry as the symbolic leader of the Club and how much you wear the success and failure of the organisation.

“That is probably something that feels somewhat liberating, in that I don’t feel like I am solely responsible for the Club winning or losing anymore.

“I felt that throughout last year when I wasn’t playing and I sit here now knowing I can take all that liberated energy and figure out how to play forward again and working with our other forwards to enjoy my last few years as a player and, hopefully, being a part of that first premiership team.”

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