Clint Gutherson will no longer be the sole captain of the Parramatta Eels, with the club announcing Junior Paulo will join him in a co-captaincy capacity for the 2022 season.
Gutherson was the sole captain of the blue and gold last year as the club finished sixth on the NRL ladder before bowing out of the finals in the second week for the third year in a row.
Having beaten the Newcastle Knights in the first week of the finals, the Eels then bowed out with a tight loss to the Penrith Panthers.
The previous two years, they had fallen at the same hurdle, and Brad Arthur's side will be desperate to take an extra step in 2022.
Paulo's appointment as co-captain may come as a surprise given Gutherson is the undisputed leader of the team, however, his body of work late in 2021 was undeniable.
He significantly increased his workload late in the season, only playing less than 50 minutes once after Round 19, while his 64-minute and 70-minute efforts against the Storm in Round 24 and Knights in Week 1 of the finals were inspirational.
He has played a grand total of 177 games, with 122 of them coming for the Eels in two stints on either side of a 55-game stint at the Canberra Raiders. He has been back with the Eels since the 2019 season, playing 69 games this time around and is now locked into a new long-term deal with the club.
A walk-up start for the New South Wales Origin side, Paulo has turned himself into a pack leader at the Eels and will aim to stay that way for years to come on his shiny new contract.
Feels like a bit of a kick to the groin for Gutho. I wonder if it had anything to do with the way the contract talks panned out last year?