MELBOURNE co-captain James McDonald believes the club's next skipper "could be anyone" from within the red and blue ranks.  

The highly-respected, dual Keith 'Bluey' Truscott Trophy winner is sharing the duties with Cameron Bruce, following the recent retirement of club legend David Neitz, but he is not looking past 2008 in terms of whether he will lead the club next year.

"I'll just get through this year first and see what happens," McDonald told melbournefc.com.au.

"It's pretty challenging at the moment, but Cameron Bruce and a few of the guys coming though, like Brad Green, Aaron Davey and Nathan Jones are jumping on board and picking up the slack.

"'Neita' has been a dominant figure and leader for so long that's it's going to be a great opportunity for some blokes to step-up and help out with that role.

"You're not going to replace 'Neita', so we need everyone to take on more responsibility."

McDonald, who has been an integral part of the red and blue's midfield brigade in recent years, played down back on first-year Hawthorn dynamo Cyril Rioli in round nine.

So what did the 31-year-old think about lining up on one of the competition's electrifying young guns?

"He's pretty quick. I had to try and pull out a few old tricks and he got me a couple of times, but it's good to play down there, because we've got a pretty young backline and I was stepping the average age up, as the rest are around 19 or 20 years old," McDonald said.

"Blokes like Col Garland did a fantastic job on 'Buddy' Franklin, who kicked three goals and James Frawley was good, so hopefully those blokes get some great confidence out of that."