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Davey’s ‘identity shift’ after losing Pies captaincy

BRI DAVEY has said the loss of Collingwood’s captaincy has resulted in “an identity shift”.

The 30-year-old has held either a captaincy or vice-captaincy role in all previous nine seasons of AFLW, but an injury-affected few years resulted in the Magpies shifting the reins over to Ruby Schleicher.

“The club spoke to me March-April time about where my body was at. They felt it was the right thing for me to step away from the responsibility from captaincy and really focus on the body and get that right,” Davey said AFL.com.au‘s The W Show.

“But, for me, there’s no better person to take over the reins than ‘Rubes’. She’s not only a great person and really well respected by everyone at the club, but also a great footballer and in good form at the moment.

“I’m a pretty passionate person as well, and I really love the club, and I really love the team. I think there’s part of me that thought I had more in me to give in that space, and I still will, without an official title. Of course, I’ll still help guide the group and help and lead as well in an unofficial way.

“Again, at the time, I understood the thinking and I respect the decision, but like I said, Rubes will do a great job. It was a bit of an identity shift in some ways too, I was skipper at the Blues and skipper at Collingwood – again, just looking forward to supporting the team now in any way I can.”

Davey has been ruled out of the first half of the season, but is still hopeful she will feature at some point in 2025.

The Pies have been keen to get to the source of her ankle issues, rather than strap the joint and push through, as was the case last year.

She missed six of 11 games in 2024 with a combination of ankle, shin and concussion injuries.

Bri Davey handballs during Collingwood’s training session at Olympic Park Oval on May 21, 2025. Picture: Getty Images

“I’ve had a bit of a struggle with the ankle/foot area over the pre-season and off-season. Hopefully I’ll be back in the back-half of the season, but will miss the opener, which is frustrating and hard. But definitely looking forward to getting back when I can,” Davey said.

“There’s been this pain – and I’ve dealt with pain before – but this pain hasn’t been too nice. It’s been in the ankle area, they’ve had to go through a few different scans and a few different things to get to the bottom of it.

“At the moment, we’re back on track, it’s more a matter of getting conditioning into the body to try and get back out there. Starting to run and build that up now.

“It will look like the second half of the season, but confident I’ll get up and the club is supporting me as much as it can at the moment to make sure that happens.

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