HAWTHON defender and All-Australian Campbell Brown says hehas no chance of captaining the Hawks next year, despite coming off his most successfulseason and being one of the most respected players at the club.

The fearless defender is hopeful of entering theleadership group for the 2008 season, but believes Luke Hodge andSam Mitchell are still the favourites to take over from the now retired RichieVandenberg as captain.

"There's no chance at all. I'm not even in theleadership group at Hawthorn. That's all right though, as I can focus in on mygame, but I'd like to continue to think that I'm a leader on the field in theway I go about it and at the end of the day, it doesn't really bother me,"Brown told afl.com.au.

"With Richie and Ben [Dixon] having been in the leadership group,there will be a vote for who should be in it now, so you never know [what willhappen] but we'll have to wait and see."

Brown, who gave away considerable height and weight to beatsome of the best key forwards in the game this year, said his All-Australianselection on the half-back flank wasn't something he was expecting.

"You don't go into the season wanting it, but when itcomes your way, it's definitely a great honour," he said.

"Personally, I was relatively happy with the season. Iwas injury-free and played most of the season and also playing centre half-backwas a little bit different to me.

"Danny Frawley came to the club and really helpedmyself, Steve Gilham and Trent Croad in a lot of areas and playing on biggeropponents, bigger bodies and applying physical pressure, so that was great.

"It's good that I have the option of picking up ataller guy or a smaller guy because I played on guys like [Alan] Didak as well."

Brown said playing in a key defensive position,predominantly at centre half-back, had evolved early in the year.

"It wasn't discussed through the pre-season and thenwhen we were coming up to the Essendon game, we'd seen Harry O'Brien's job onScott Lucas. He's a little bit taller than me, but he's also pretty short forcentre half-back," Brown said.

"They [the coaches] asked me if I would be comfortablein the role and I said, 'I'll do what's best for the team'. I got that job doneand from there it was [Matthew] Pavlich and then [Nick] Riewoldt. It was greatthat they showed some faith in me."

Brown was pleased to remain injury-free and play every matchfor the season – apart from the opening round when he was suspended – aftersustaining a hip injury during last season's trip to Ireland with the Australian team inthe International Rules series.

Still, he relished the opportunity to represent his country.

"No doubt going over to Ireland and being in the company ofchampions like Michael Voss and Barry Hall – you learn a lot along the way andyou pick up things," Brown said.

"But when I hurt my hip I thought it might set me backfor a while, because I need quite a big pre-season, but I worked hard in thepool to get my fitness up, so it's been a big 12 months."

Reflecting on Hawthorn's fine season before it lost to theKangaroos during the semi finals, Brown said it was a case of mixed emotions.

"On the Tuesday after the game, we went through it afair bit and we understand we didn't play our best footy, but that's takingaway nothing from the Kangaroos because they were really hard at it and theyplayed a good game. It was disappointing looking back," Brown said.

"A lot of people will come out and say we did reallywell because no one expected us to, but within ourselves we had a lot of beliefwe could do it, so in that regard we were happy with our year, but we were nomeans satisfied with the way we finished the year."

As for the likelihood of missing out on the services of WestCoast skipper Chris Judd, Brown said it wasn't disappointing at all.

"Obviously he's a great player and any club would behappy getting him, but he came out and said he didn't want to play at Hawthornand we'll respect that," Brown said.

"He's got his own philosophy of where he wants to goand why, so it's up to him.

"From a players' point of view, we'd love to have him,but it's his choose that he doesn't want to be pursued by Hawthorn, so we won'tbother wasting too much time."