VAN BERLO TO GO SOLO AS CAPTAIN IN 2016

WEST Perth's leadership will have a new look for the 2016 WAFL season with Jay van Berlo to take over as the sole captain with the Falcons.

Van Berlo has shared the captaincy role with Luke Tedesco the last two seasons since the retirement of premiership skipper Jason Salecic.

However, some growing commitments off the field have meant that Tedesco has decided to step down from his co-captaincy leaving van Berlo to take on the role solo for the 2016 season.

Van Berlo has now played 123 matches for the Falcons and is a 2013 premiership player and Breckler Medal winner from 2008.

He continues to be one of the most effective, hardest working and versatile players in the competition, and the leadership from the 27-year-old is something that continues to emerge the longer he is in the captaincy role.

Van Berlo is looking forward to taking over as captain in his own right for 2016.

"It's very exciting. I have shared the role with Teddy for the last two years but for personal reasons he's not going to be with me this year," van Berlo told Channel 7's West Perth season preview.

"But I'm really looking forward to the challenge and I feel like I'm ready, so it's going to be good fun."

Van Berlo is confident that the work the Falcons have done over summer has them primed and ready to go for Round 1 this Saturday for the Garlic Munchers Cup clash with South Fremantle at Fremantle Oval.

But there's no doubt that the pain of the losing grand final to Subiaco from last September has been used as motivation for all those 22 players involved to make sure it doesn’t happen again if they get another opportunity.

"It's always a lot of work over pre-season and it's not the most fun part of the year, but we are at the end of it now and looking forward to Round 1. The boys are looking sharp and are ready to go," he said.

"We are certainly using it as motivation. I think the boys are still quite hurt by the fact that we didn’t perform well that day and we'd like to rectify that this year.

"It's been a good motivator for the whole pre-season and going forward I think it will be a good bit of ammunition for us."