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Carney is surprise vice-captain

Dave Hadfield
Wednesday 07 September 2005 00:00 BST
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Peacock, the Bradford captain whose move to Leeds was confirmed last week, moves up from vice-captain to replace the injured Paul Sculthorpe. "He wears his heart on his sleeve and leads by example, but he also understands tactics," Noble said. "He's had a difficult season at Bradford with all our ups and downs, but I never flinched from promoting him."

The only other serious candidate for the captaincy was Leeds' Kevin Sinfield, who might have expected the vice-captaincy which has gone to Carney, Wigan's Irish winger, one of the stars of last season's tournament but ruled out by injury for much of this.

Carney's elevation is all the more startling given that he will join the Newcastle Knights next year before taking up a longer term deal with the new Gold Coast franchise in Australia. Noble said: "People see the joker side of Brian, but he's also a very passionate, very committed, very intelligent footballer, who has learnt rugby league from scratch."

The New Zealand scrum-half, Stacey Jones, will come out of international retirement for the first two Tri-Nations games next month. His successor, London's Thomas Leuluai, has a broken ankle and Jones will step in for the matches in Sydney and Auckland before the Kiwis fly to Britain.

Huddersfield's coach, John Sharp, has agreed a contract extension to 2008.

The Hull centre Kirk Yeaman has been suspended for two games for a dangerous tackle during the 49-6 defeat at Bradford.

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