Scott Pendlebury will captain a Collingwood side in 2015 that coach Nathan Buckley says is capable of returning to the finals.
Pendlebury was named the club's skipper for a second season on Thursday and will lead a five-man leadership group that includes vice-captains Travis Cloke, Nathan Brown, Steele Sidebottom and Tyson Goldsack, who is the only new addition to the group from last year.
"They're five very strong leaders, they're all premiership players and they all know what it takes to get there," Buckley said.
"They're entrusted with the responsibility of working with the coaches to drive this young group towards its next period of sustained success.
"We want to get back into finals and clearly that's the ambition of all these boys." This year's leadership group has been reduced from eight players last season with Nick Maxwell and Luke Ball retiring and Lachie Keeffe and Clinton Young dropping out.
"When the players went through the selection process there was a fairly clear delineation between the top five and the rest," Buckley explained.
"We feel that we've really developed our leadership over the last couple of years and the vindication of that is the strength of this leadership group, even with players like Luke Ball and Nick Maxwell moving on from the football club.
"I'm as comfortable as I have been as senior coach, at any stage, seeing them with the responsibility of driving the playing group."
The Pies finished in 11th place with 11 wins in Pendlebury's first year in the job he took over from premiership skipper Maxwell and he admitted he didn't enjoy looking on from the sidelines as the finals took place.
"It was the first time I've missed out and I don't want to have to go through that again," Pendlebury said.
"I didn't enjoy it, I don't think I even watched the first round of finals, because it was like rubbing salt into the wound.
"We're entrusted to drive our group and push us back to finals this year, which is clearly what we're aiming to do."
The Pies made their leadership announcement from Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne to coincide with the extension of the club's sponsorship deal with Holden.
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