GARY Bowyer is all about the future – and his decision to hand Grant Hanley the captaincy is proof of that.

Looking around the Blackburn squad you would have thought it would have gone to Paul Robinson or David Dunn as they are older, experienced lads.

But Gary has to look at the long-term and that is why he has gone with Grant.

I think it’s nice to see and a really nice touch.

And it’s not that Grant and Gary can’t rely on the experience of Dunny and Robbo as they remain part of the captain’s band.

Hopefully Grant will grow with the captaincy and the extra responsibility that comes with it, I don’t think he’ll have a problem as you can see already that he is a talker on the pitch.

But if people think that a captain’s duty is just to lead your team out on to the pitch then they are wrong.

It’s also about representing Blackburn Rovers in and outside of the football club and in many ways it puts you on the management side of things.

But Gary thinks Grant can do it and I’m delighted for him.

I was also pleased to see that Craig Conway made a good debut against Blackpool on Saturday.

I watched Craig Conway when he was at my former club Dundee United before he got a good move down to Cardiff City.

He’s a really busy player. He can put a good ball into the box and he’s very comfortable as a right-footed player playing on the left.

In many ways he’s very similar to Ben Marshall, who unfortunately we’ve just lost to injury, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him play more.

Games like Blackpool can backfire against you.

They’d just lost their manager, had an old Blackburn player coming back in Barry Ferguson, and there was potential for an upset.

But when you’re taking on teams that are down there like Blackpool then you have to keep them down there. You can’t take pity on them.

Many times in the past Blackburn would have taken pity on Blackpool and maybe let them have a draw or even a victory.

But it’s good to see that times have changed.

It doesn’t particularly matter how you play at this stage of the season, it’s all about results and on Saturday Blackburn did just that.

Next up is Middlesbrough, one of the teams who are just below us in the table.

The match will start at 0-0 and if it ended at 0-0 you wouldn’t complain.

But as I’ve said many times before, I think there are a lot of teams we are better than and it’s just about going out to set up to win.

Unfortunately I’ll miss the match as I am being inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame.

But I’ll be cheering Blackburn on.