Midfield & Ruck Situation

[MeisterBot]

Actually, it's just come to me reading one of frizzle's posts blasting the fitness staff for our horror run with injury this year, we have Matt Suckling on the VFL list. Completely forgot about him. Listed at 183cm and 88kg, he was dominant in the SANFL as a big boded inside mid. Injured this year (of course) but he might offer something at AFL level going forward. Remember he came in halfway through the year and was BOG in his debut game against Casey. Not a fast one though, so would have to play exclusively as an inside mid.

 

[42Pants]

We need a mongrel to stand next to pendles and beams at centre bounces

 

[Skippos]

For those who are writing off your ruck stocks for 2015 already:

Look at all the top notch ruckmen in the competition and look at the age at which they exploded and really went from 'mediocre' to elite. It normally happens pretty suddenly, rucks really seem to 'break out' - normally over a year or two where they just improve from average to great to elite. Jacobs, Goldstein, Kreuzer, Leuenberger and Cox all did it in the season they turned 23. McEvoy at 22, Mumford and Lobbe at 24. Minson/Maric/Sandilands did it a bit later but in general I'd be hoping a ruckman really begins to impose himself around 23. The big 'inside monsters' seem to take a bit longer to develop and the athletic ones (i.e Naitanui, Ryder) are a bit quicker but yeah.

Witts has shown more at 21 than most current top notch rucks did by then. A lot more. There's a pretty big sample of rucks stepping up the year they turn 23/24. In 2015 Witts turns 23. I think there's a real chance over the off season Witts develops more than people are expecting and begins to make that step up and enters the top 10 ruckmen in the league. 2016 I think he'll step up even further and solidify himself as an upper echelon ruck.

Witts certainly isn't the complete package yet. But at 21/22 plenty of our current upper echelon rucks weren't either. There's a real chance he could develop into the answer to your problems over the off season. Which is pretty unfortunate for Grundy as if Witts does that it's gonna be tough for the kid to break into the side as Witts by virtue of being a year or two older might just always be that little bit better until both peak.

tl;dr Witts is god, Witts is the solution to all your problems.

 

[PTpie]

For those who are writing off your ruck stocks for 2015 already:

Witts has shown more at 21 than most current top notch rucks did by then. A lot more. There's a pretty big sample of rucks stepping up the year they turn 23/24. In 2015 Witts turns 23. I think there's a real chance over the off season Witts develops more than people are expecting and begins to make that step up and enters the top 10 ruckmen in the league. 2016 I think he'll step up even further and solidify himself as an upper echelon ruck.

Witts certainly isn't the complete package yet. But at 21/22 plenty of our current upper echelon rucks weren't either. There's a real chance he could develop into the answer to your problems over the off season. Which is pretty unfortunate for Grundy as if Witts does that it's gonna be tough for the kid to break into the side as Witts by virtue of being a year or two older might just always be that little bit better until both peak.

tl;dr Witts is god, Witts is the solution to all your problems.

Thanks for breaking up the consistent negativity. Most people are their own harshest critics but sometimes I think this forum takes that to a new level. J Witts is shown so much promise this year, in particular since the spray from Buckley, that it would be dumb to undermine all his and the clubs efforts to develop him by bringing someone else in.

Grundy is still raw. I love his toughness and aggression. He has a generally delicate first touch that can drop the pill straight into someones hands. However he gets tired and loses focus quickly and too often. He needs a few more pre seasons and he will become the "mongrel" in the middle that we need to allow Witts the opportunity to really ruck and provide our quality mids first touch more often.

As for the mids themselves, we have lost some quality and are currently developing some more. We have games that we control and other that we don't. Time will prove if we are on the right track but I can't see us trading in someone like Dangerfield and being able to keep other more integral players according to game plan and structure.

 

[DAWESOME!!]

We've got guys for the future already. We need to get some ready made solid guns in that team. It's time to pounce.

This is us, if we try to "pounce" our way to a flag now, via FA and trades.

 

[TradeDraft]

For those who are writing off your ruck stocks for 2015 already:

Look at all the top notch ruckmen in the competition and look at the age at which they exploded and really went from 'mediocre' to elite. It normally happens pretty suddenly, rucks really seem to 'break out' - normally over a year or two where they just improve from average to great to elite. Jacobs, Goldstein, Kreuzer, Leuenberger and Cox all did it in the season they turned 23. McEvoy at 22, Mumford and Lobbe at 24. Minson/Maric/Sandilands did it a bit later but in general I'd be hoping a ruckman really begins to impose himself around 23. The big 'inside monsters' seem to take a bit longer to develop and the athletic ones (i.e Naitanui, Ryder) are a bit quicker but yeah.

Witts has shown more at 21 than most current top notch rucks did by then. A lot more. There's a pretty big sample of rucks stepping up the year they turn 23/24. In 2015 Witts turns 23. I think there's a real chance over the off season Witts develops more than people are expecting and begins to make that step up and enters the top 10 ruckmen in the league. 2016 I think he'll step up even further and solidify himself as an upper echelon ruck.

Witts certainly isn't the complete package yet. But at 21/22 plenty of our current upper echelon rucks weren't either. There's a real chance he could develop into the answer to your problems over the off season. Which is pretty unfortunate for Grundy as if Witts does that it's gonna be tough for the kid to break into the side as Witts by virtue of being a year or two older might just always be that little bit better until both peak.

tl;dr Witts is god, Witts is the solution to all your problems.

Then you have Grundy a few years after that too.

It scary how good our Rucks Stocks can become

 

[Robroy22]

For those who are writing off your ruck stocks for 2015 already:

Look at all the top notch ruckmen in the competition and look at the age at which they exploded and really went from 'mediocre' to elite. It normally happens pretty suddenly, rucks really seem to 'break out' - normally over a year or two where they just improve from average to great to elite. Jacobs, Goldstein, Kreuzer, Leuenberger and Cox all did it in the season they turned 23. McEvoy at 22, Mumford and Lobbe at 24. Minson/Maric/Sandilands did it a bit later but in general I'd be hoping a ruckman really begins to impose himself around 23. The big 'inside monsters' seem to take a bit longer to develop and the athletic ones (i.e Naitanui, Ryder) are a bit quicker but yeah.

Witts has shown more at 21 than most current top notch rucks did by then. A lot more. There's a pretty big sample of rucks stepping up the year they turn 23/24. In 2015 Witts turns 23. I think there's a real chance over the off season Witts develops more than people are expecting and begins to make that step up and enters the top 10 ruckmen in the league. 2016 I think he'll step up even further and solidify himself as an upper echelon ruck.

Witts certainly isn't the complete package yet. But at 21/22 plenty of our current upper echelon rucks weren't either. There's a real chance he could develop into the answer to your problems over the off season. Which is pretty unfortunate for Grundy as if Witts does that it's gonna be tough for the kid to break into the side as Witts by virtue of being a year or two older might just always be that little bit better until both peak.

tl;dr Witts is god, Witts is the solution to all your problems.

Great post mate, I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[mike123]

In my opinion our midfield and ruck situation is holding us back more than any other factor at the moment and I'm not much can be done about it.

When I look at our midfield I see the following:

• We have no genuine outside running mids (ball, pendles, beams, sidebottom, martin, adams, thomas, dwyer, blair, injured swan are all one paced)

I wouldn't call Dwyer one paced, it call him not good enough to be apart of our midfield group. Seedsman, Young and Lumumba are our outside mids. They all have the same problem. They don't really lower their eyes.

• Our best outside running midfielder is not able to impact games anymore due to injury

Who?
Swan?

• One of our best contested players is on the verge of retirement (Ball)

We have the perfect replacement for him.

• We have two babies in the ruck that get man handled every week and never put the ball to our advantage

Witts, I don't see put the ball to our advantage but I've seen but Grundy give quite a few clean hitouts to advantage

Unless the following happens in 2015 I can't see us improving significantly:

• Recruit a mature age ruck that can come in for a couple of years and make an impact
• Swan fully recovers from injury and starts to influence games like he used to (on the outside)
• Mature contested midfielder needed to replace Ball's impact

I don't think we need a Ball replacement because we have Adams. We need a bulldozer in the midfield.

 

[jjsmitty8]

In regards to the ruck situation, we need to keep persisting with Witts and Grundy. Witts is having a superb year, Grundy not as much but still improving weekly. The way I see it is that one of them (probably Grundy) needs to add just one my string to his bow. They'll both make for excellent ruck men, but it's very rare that a side can afford to play two pure ruck only type players. Unfortunately for Brodie and Wittsy, they're probably not blessed with much else. Brodie could maybe spend some more time forward, but that's all. Neither can play defence.