How important is a captain really?

I'm catching up on Joe.ie's 'The Hard Yards' podcast. Episode three sees the guys (including Malcolm O'Kelly and Jerry Flannery) really playing down the role of captainship within a team. Effectively they said the only thing they do is chat to the ref and the media. The idea of a captain leading the other team mates was down played.

Did anyone else hear it? Whats the thoughts?

Here is the podcast if you want to listen:
http://www.joe.ie/rugby/heineken-cup/the-hard-yards-rugby-podcast-episode-3-0031348-1

As far as I'm concerned the captain's only real job is communicating with the ref (and as the refs way of communicating with the team). everything else is done regardless of whether they're the official captain or not. People talk about leading by example, etc but that happens anyway.

Seemingly increasingly even penalty award decisions are made by the coach and not the captain. Schmidt in particular seems to leave the skipper with no specific additional function save that of getting in the ref's ear.

Also depends on the captain. Will Carling was very 'important' to the team, just not always in a good way...

A good question. I think that you don't realise how important a good captain is until you don't actually have one. Look at the Scottish teams (national and club) recently - lacking basic leadership where a captain calls them into a huddle to shout at them/encourage them/change tactics etc.
I think that the better and more responsible a team that you have, the less important a dominant captain is.
To contradict myself totally, though, the like of Martin Johnston leading the Lions was a master stroke as, in an intangible way, it gained the team respect. I think it was McGeechan who said that he wanted his captain to literally fill the door of the opposition when he appeared there.

I think England demonstrated the need for a captain with a brain, in the case of Wales the captain has little or no say the coaches decide what to do, usually the wrong decision in the AI and Aust tour.