Prochard123
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jul 28, 2014
- 7,147
- 5,773
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
he posted this ages ago..... This list has Zac Smith infront of Grundy at 5, its his opinion at that time, we just have the benefit of the hindsight
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Review Knightmare's 2010-2013 top 40
- Thread starter The Bomb
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Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #477
For an updated 2010-2013 top 40. Without spending any significant time on it I'd go with:
*I'm sure I've missed a few but these are the guys who come to mind.. (I imagine someone will let me know if I've missed one or two guys)
1. Jeremy Cameron
2. Jon Patton
3. Tom Boyd
4. Jaeger O'Meara
5. Brodie Grundy
6. Joe Daniher
7. Marcus Bontempelli
8. Dyson Heppell
9. Tom Liberatore
10. Chad Wingard
11. Adam Treloar
12. Brad Crouch
13. Oliver Wines
14. Jackson Macrae
15. Luke Parker
16. Dylan Shiel
17. Tom Nicholls
18. Scott Lycett
19. Jesse Hogan
20. Jarrod Witts
21. Tom Lynch
22. Adam Tomlinson
23. Darcy Gardiner
24. Harley Bennell
25. David Swallow
26. James Aish
27. Jack Billings
28. Matthew Scharenberg
29. Luke McDonald
30. Kade Kolodjashnij
31. Jamie Elliott
32. Isaac Smith
33. Dion Prestia
34. Luke Dunstan
35. Brodie Smith
36. Brandon Ellis
37. Stephen Coniglio
38. Jake Stringer
39. Trent McKenzie
40. Jack Martin
Next 25 and I could also make strong cases for and all deserving of mentions:
Toby Greene
Jack Viney
Tom Mitchell
Dom Tyson
Jared Polec
Lachie Whitfield
Luke Dahlhaus
Martin Gleeson
Zach Merrett
Josh Kelly
Sam Mayes
Nick Vlastuin
Jack Darling
Andrew Gaff
Jack Newnes
Tom Langdon
Tim Broomhead
Marley Williams
Josh Jenkins
Charlie Dixon
Rory Thompson
Jack Frost
Jeremy Howe
Michael Hibberd
Dayne Zorko
Zac Smith
*I'm sure I've missed a few but these are the guys who come to mind.. (I imagine someone will let me know if I've missed one or two guys)
1. Jeremy Cameron
2. Jon Patton
3. Tom Boyd
4. Jaeger O'Meara
5. Brodie Grundy
6. Joe Daniher
7. Marcus Bontempelli
8. Dyson Heppell
9. Tom Liberatore
10. Chad Wingard
11. Adam Treloar
12. Brad Crouch
13. Oliver Wines
14. Jackson Macrae
15. Luke Parker
16. Dylan Shiel
17. Tom Nicholls
18. Scott Lycett
19. Jesse Hogan
20. Jarrod Witts
21. Tom Lynch
22. Adam Tomlinson
23. Darcy Gardiner
24. Harley Bennell
25. David Swallow
26. James Aish
27. Jack Billings
28. Matthew Scharenberg
29. Luke McDonald
30. Kade Kolodjashnij
31. Jamie Elliott
32. Isaac Smith
33. Dion Prestia
34. Luke Dunstan
35. Brodie Smith
36. Brandon Ellis
37. Stephen Coniglio
38. Jake Stringer
39. Trent McKenzie
40. Jack Martin
Next 25 and I could also make strong cases for and all deserving of mentions:
Toby Greene
Jack Viney
Tom Mitchell
Dom Tyson
Jared Polec
Lachie Whitfield
Luke Dahlhaus
Martin Gleeson
Zach Merrett
Josh Kelly
Sam Mayes
Nick Vlastuin
Jack Darling
Andrew Gaff
Jack Newnes
Tom Langdon
Tim Broomhead
Marley Williams
Josh Jenkins
Charlie Dixon
Rory Thompson
Jack Frost
Jeremy Howe
Michael Hibberd
Dayne Zorko
Zac Smith
Last edited:
TradeDraft
Premium Platinum
That could be 1 Scary Forward line for GWS
Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #480
Tyson struggled pre-Melbourne and only this year has established himself.
He's thereabouts based on what he's achieved this season and he'll no doubt build on it so he could break into that top 40.
Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #482
Depends on how highly you rate ruckmen.
Others may say the same of the key position players I rate highly.
I like my quality bigs. Good ones are hard to find and all four of Grundy, Nicholls, Lycett and Witts injuries permitting long term can be among the 5-6 best in the game once established.
Fair point. He'll poll quite well in the brownlow this year. Had some stand out games. Good effort overall!
TradeDraft
Premium Platinum
Quality Talls are not as easily found as Quality Mids.
That is Why Talls will be Rated higher then Mids
- Jun 19, 2006
- 10,015
- 18,374
- AFL Club
- Geelong
The breakdown by club in that 65 is interesting. By my count (which is probably wrong) it's:
Gold Coast - 11
GWS - 10
Collingwood - 8
Western Bulldogs, Essendon - 5
Melbourne, Brisbane - 4
Adelaide, StKilda, West Coast, Port Adelaide - 3
Richmond, Sydney - 2
North Melbourne, Hawthorn - 1
Geelong, Carlton, Fremantle - 0
The only thing that surprised me was how many Collingwood players you have in there. Given how highly you rate both Grundy and Witts do expect them to play together in the same team in the future or do you think one of them will move on for more opportunities at some point?
Quality bigs are important but how many dominant ruckman have there been over the years? Having read plenty of your posts I would say you have a tendency to overrate ruckman who have shown glimpses but are a fair way away from the complete package.
That being said I appreciate the effort you went to in putting together the top 40 over 4 drafts.
Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #488
Collingwood are strong through the draft and in developing young talent.
The issue at Collingwood is that those mid career guys aren't elevating their games further and those veterans are declining earlier than happens at other clubs.
It's a good comment and I'm glad you mentioned it.
On performance today these ruckmen haven't performed to the level of those others - but ruckmen do take longer so you have to speculate in the future what they'll do. And Grundy, Nicholls, Lycett and Witts outside of Naitanui are those better young ruckmen or look like it at this stage who have all shown the risk signs suggesting they can develop into high level pros.
The issue I find with those ruckmen selected early draft is they tend to play at AFL level early and with that they often then experience durability issues and have shortened careers. We've seen it already with Kreuzer/Leuenberger/Naitanui who were all picked early and they've all suffered from their various injuries. And then you've got those ruckmen picked as rookies who have become the best of the lot, developing later which when projecting into the future in those initial years rarely can be predicted and therein lies the challenge.
There does seem a link between star young ruckman who play early in their career and injuries. I know he hasn't had as much game time as the others but Rory Lobb looks a gem from GWS and will probably peak in time to take over from Mumford when his career starts coming to an end.
Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #490
Lobb is a relatively advanced age for a recent recruit and even has a year on Brodie Grundy and is only a year younger than Witts, Nicholls and Lycett. He's not yet playing to an AFL standard but performing well in the NEAFL whereas the others are going well for young ruckmen. Lobb's growth will be interesting to track. Nice height and has some scope to improve.
no menzel 
Knightmare
Brownlow Medallist
- Sep 22, 2010
- 19,533
- 19,542
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Chicago Bulls
- Banned
- #492
no menzel
Menzel is an excellent talent but I'm concerned as anything about his knees. Seeing Daniel with his yearly knee injuries and with Troy already having had LARS already as a junior with his own knee issues I'm not optimistic he'll be part of that very top group.
Still can have a strong career though and hopefully a healthier run than his older brother.
TradeDraft
Premium Platinum
Grundy was not a Speculative Ruck Prospect, Lycett was a Early 2nd Rounder and others where Signed as Under age Prospect to Suns and Witts is a NSW Signing for Collingwood
Pick 29. Hardly early. Still baffled a bit as to how Gorringe was rated so much higher than Lycett.
A good point though. Grundy's slide (and subsequent performances) seem to have caused this 'perception' that good rucks slide. I don't think they do? We haven't had many 'complete' rucks come through the system of late with plenty of project or raw ruckmen (who you're understandably not going to waste a high pick on) but those that have been perceived as pretty good and well rounded (Longer/Gorringe/Vickery/Naitanui/Cordy/Kreuzer/McEvoy/Lobbe) have all been selected pretty highly, Grundy's the exception. It's not a case of rucks being undervalued in the draft it's that there aren't any worthwhile ones, quite simply.
It'd be interesting to consider where Nicholls, Smith and Witts (and even Moller) would have gone in an open draft. If they were thrown in I reckon the recent history of rucks in drafts would look a lot healthier.
Hopefully some of Della Franca/Sullivan/Parrella/Nyoun/Dennis (though the latter won't come through the main draft) come on and get drafted highly.
Prestia seems a bit hard done by but its hard to pick who to bump him for.
I'd like to think that the likes of Neale & Sutcliffe who were taken in the 50's and 70's of 2011 class wouldn't be far below some of the players mentioned in the lower half of you draft there. Both have established places in Freo's best 22. Lee Spurr as a mature ager from the same draft is going ok too.
Oh and Max Duffy with a bullet
Good effort Knightmare
I'd like to think that the likes of Neale & Sutcliffe who were taken in the 50's and 70's of 2011 class wouldn't be far below some of the players mentioned in the lower half of you draft there. Both have established places in Freo's best 22. Lee Spurr as a mature ager from the same draft is going ok too.
Oh and Max Duffy with a bullet
Good effort Knightmare
Not sure how grundy is top 6
My point is that good ruck man aren't exactly rare and only a few ruck man in the past decade could be argued to have the same impact as gun forwards/midfielders. So I don't see why they should have an inflated value in the top 40 rankings.
How do you know that though? How do we know that, say, removing Mumford from GWS and replacing him with Giles doesn't have just as big a negative effect as replacing Treloar and replacing him with Whiley?
It's a difficult position to really analyse their effect as an effective ruckman rarely break games, their effect is often very subtle (but important!)
- Jun 19, 2006
- 10,015
- 18,374
- AFL Club
- Geelong
You can argue that a ruckman at their best is really, really important. But in recent times almost no ruckmen have played consistently at a very high level for a long period of time.
Most good ruckmen are guys like Jacobs, Minson and Maric who spend a long time being thought of as spuds because they take a long time to develop. Even when they break out they tend to have very poor seasons due to injury or form more often than gun smalls. In recent years only Cox and Sandilands have performed at a consistently high level over a long period of time. They're the only 2 rucks in the last decade who have performed to a standard that would have them right up towards the pointy end of this list.
Yet Knightmare's list contains 4 rucks in the top 20. If you took the the 4 years across Sandi and Cox's drafts (say 1998 to 2001), these 2 would be competing with guys like Bolton, Hayes, Pavlich, Glass, Chapman, Brown, Enright, Ling, O'Keefe, Riewoldt, Shaun Burgoyne, Scott Thompson, Kerr, Ablett, Hodge, Judd, Ball, Dal Santo, Johnson and Mitchell. Personally I'd have both rucks inside the top 20 (Cox top 10 for mine) but even taking the 2 best ruckmen in recent memory only gets the second one towards the bottom end of the 20 in my opinion.
Considering so few rucks dominate the game over an extended period, and the 2 recent ones that have are by no means massive standouts across their 4 draft years, I think it's a big step to think that 4 of the top 20 over this drafting period will be rucks. It would just go against all the recent history of how the career of ruckmen work out.
Think back 5-10 years ago at some of the rucks leading ruck divisions.
We're going through a purple patch of ruckmen. I'd almost argue that more ruckman have played consistently at a high level now than ever before. I reckon there are 10-15 'top tier' rucks in the comp, whereas normally there are only 3-5. I reckon this dilution of top standard rucks has led to no real genuine stand outs (i.e. cox at his peak) and a perception that there isn't much at the top end when really, there's more than ever.
