Alun Wyn Jones is a captain who wants other leaders alongside him for Wales and claimed “followers are for Twitter”.
The new Wales skipper has also suggested he would not have taken the armband if he felt it would have protected his place in the team should he lose form.
The Lions and Ospreys second row was speaking at the launch of the Six Nations in London where he paid tribute to Sam Warburton’s “graciousness” in relinquishing the captaincy in a bid to recover his own top grade performances.
Jones already has 136,000 followers on Twitter and believes he is not in need of any more among his teammates out on the field. Although, he could hardly be described as a heavy user on social media as his last tweet was posted on December 19, urging people to get along to Singleton Hospital for a cake sale to raise funds for cancer treatments
Jones revealed he expects to earn his own starting spot in the Wales pack and will not accept automatic selection in this season’s RBS 6 Nations just because he is the captain.
“In a way the captaincy is just a label, but I’m ready and able to make decisions as captain when needed,” said Jones.
“But if we can grow more leaders in the team that we have, if we can get to the point where we’re making similar decisions without having to consult with each other, that’s a case of job-done, let’s move onto the next challenge as a group and a team.
“I don’t want followers: followers are for Twitter.
“Also, if I’m not playing well hopefully I’ll still be available to be deselected. If that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t have accepted the captaincy.
“The graciousness that Sam (Warburton) has displayed has been good.
“Hopefully we’ve been a credit to the fact it shouldn’t be about us it should be about the team.”
Wales confirmed they have failed in their bid to have the Principality Stadium classified as a closed-roof ground for the tournament.
Six Nations bosses rejected Wales’ application to alter the status of their home ground, which would allow them to play every home game with a closed roof.
Wales will still need to gain the agreement of opponents in order to stage Six Nations matches with the stadium’s roof closed.
Interim head coach Rob Howley said: “That decision is not going to change, that’s something we wanted to have.
“We found out the result last night. So we’ll have a discussion in the week of the game, as has happened in the past.”
