Adelaide's players have endorsed Simon Goodwin for one more season as captain while also promoting two loyal servants from the ranks to join the AFL club's leadership group.

At 32, Goodwin isn't getting any younger, and he struggled for much of 2008 to play at his best amid a range of niggling injuries to his creaking back and weary legs.

But he has looked fit and fresh in pre-season training so far, enough to convince his peers that he should have another year as leader.

"The way the system works here is that you don't own the position, there's a leadership group that's voted and then you decide from there," Goodwin said on Friday.

"I've always been keen to do the job, there's nothing better than captaining the side you love and you're passionate about."

Goodwin's first year as skipper, following the retirement of long-time captain Mark Ricciuto, was not met with universal approval.

There were murmurings of a leadership vacuum, particularly after the Crows coughed up a sizeable lead to lose their home elimination final to Collingwood.

Knowing this, Goodwin said there was still much he had to work on as a captain, while also fostering a culture of performance under pressure - something Adelaide have failed to do more often than not in finals under coach Neil Craig.

"I think it's been a work in progress for a number of years now, I think the way we go about our culture is very strong," Goodwin said.

"More importantly the players have to really show that on the field and demonstrate that they can do it under the heat."

While Ben Rutten and Nathan van Berlo shape as Goodwin's two most likely successors in the job, the voting of Scott Stevens and Michael Doughty into the leadership group was a deserved nod to their progress.

Neither player had been a fixture in the Crows' line-up until recently, when Stevens proved his worth as one of the club's most versatile players and Doughty coupled his unquestioned attack on the ball with greater consistency.

"It's a big turnaround, at the end of 2007 my career was up in the air so to turn it around last year, I worked pretty hard on my leadership off the ground with the younger blokes and worked pretty hard on the ground to make sure I was leading by example," Doughty said.

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