Player Watch # 2: Tom Bellchambers - Fined for striking - 15/4

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Good to hear. Frustration with immaturity has seen ridiculous overreaction. He is an extremely important player for us because of what he, as first ruck, allows the rest of the forward half to do.
But he's not the first ruck. Paddy is the first ruck, because he's our best ruck.
 

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rines

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TBell isn't our first ruck.. but I would still re-sign him as a priority.. don't want to be down to one ruck only on the list.. TBell showed enough this year to warrant a good contract..

I think Ryder/TBell could be the best ruck division in the league next year bar none.
 

BrunoV

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But he's not the first ruck. Paddy is the first ruck, because he's our best ruck.

Not sure why people struggle so much with the notion that players play out of position because of the team's need. This has almost nothing to do with Ryder and everything to do with Bellchambers. There is a level to which Bellchambers must draw himself to be first ruck, the expectation is not that he would or could ever be better than Ryder (not that Ryder has ever really been amazing). It probably won't happen until he has 100 games under his belt but Bellchambers has all of the weapons to develop into a player who is a capable number 1 ruck.

The only reason we would re-sign Bellchambers is to get Ryder playing as a second/third tall forward and second ruck which changes the whole dynamic of the forward line and basically gives us the best KPF/second ruck in the game. Bellchambers and Ryder is a better combination than almost variation of Ryder and ?? that we can realistically come up with given that we are not about to sign Roughead and I very much subscribe to the theory that you don't use once in a generation key forwards as rucks (and I don't care how tall they are).

If you want to question whether Ryder is good enough forward I suppose that is fair enough but there are times when he gets on long leads and taken the ball up around 50-60m and he looks near unstoppable (especially when he bounds at the ball and takes chest marks what seems to be 2 metres in the air). I'd put his forward failures down to forward structure issues that have killed almost anyone we have used as a forward.
 

BrunoV

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TBell isn't our first ruck.. but I would still re-sign him as a priority.. don't want to be down to one ruck only on the list.. TBell showed enough this year to warrant a good contract..

I think Ryder/TBell could be the best ruck division in the league next year bar none.

I've just posted the same thing but he isn't being signed because he is the long term second ruck. He is being signed because in the next 18-24 months he get up around the 100 game mark and will be an "elite" ruck in the competition (even if he is never better than Ryder) and will be good enough for us to use Ryder where we need him most and in the position that will be the greatest benefit to the team.
 
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Not sure why people struggle so much with the notion that players play out of position because of the team's need. This has almost nothing to do with Ryder and everything to do with Bellchambers. There is a level to which Bellchambers must draw himself to be first ruck, the expectation is not that he would or could ever be better than Ryder (not that Ryder has ever really been amazing). It probably won't happen until he has 100 games under his belt but Bellchambers has all of the weapons to develop into a player who is a capable number 1 ruck.

The only reason we would re-sign Bellchambers is to get Ryder playing as a second/third tall forward and second ruck which changes the whole dynamic of the forward line and basically gives us the best KPF/second ruck in the game. Bellchambers and Ryder is a better combination than almost variation of Ryder and ?? that we can realistically come up with given that we are not about to sign Roughead and I very much subscribe to the theory that you don't use once in a generation key forwards as rucks (and I don't care how tall they are).

If you want to question whether Ryder is good enough forward I suppose that is fair enough but there are times when he gets on long leads and taken the ball up around 50-60m and he looks near unstoppable (especially when he bounds at the ball and takes chest marks what seems to be 2 metres in the air). I'd put his forward failures down to forward structure issues that have killed almost anyone we have used as a forward.
No, I question why we'd have a B+ ruckman and a B+ forward (or whatever grading you want to assign them) instead of an A+ ruck. Pick your best players in their best position.
 

Whispering_Jack

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No, I question why we'd have a B+ ruckman and a B+ forward (or whatever grading you want to assign them) instead of an A+ ruck. Pick your best players in their best position.
It's an interesting situation though because we still need to have a second competent ruckman for when Ryder needs a rest or is injured/suspended. In this instance TBC is probably too good to be the second/depth ruck but not good enough (against Ryder) to be first ruck, so we could afford to lose him only if we can get a second/depth ruck from somewhere if possible IMO.
 

ant555

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T Bell is a must keep, has improved every year and his out put on the field has closely matched Ryders in the last 2 seasons. Not sure why their is a question mark on having your second ruck being able to play forward and kick 30 odd goals for the season.
On top of that why do we need to say one is number 1 and number 2 if both can play multiple roles.
To me Ryder and T bell form a really important part of the side going forward. Their ability to not just play in the ruck will be an asset even more so when we are playing with limited interchange numbers and less rotations.
Yes Tommy would attract a decent draft pick or trade but do we need a decent draft pick or trade at this stage ? Why do we need a gun young player for 2015 right now ?

As for forward line function or lack off it the problem has not really been Bellchambers playing in it, the issue has been players leading to the same spots all the time and the fact that we where so predictable with the long bomb inside forward 50 a lot of the time. To add to this for whatever reason we could not take a lot of contested marks inside 50. Hurley because of his wrist issues, Joe because he is a first year player, Crameri as he is not that sort of player, Ryder as sides know if they block his run at the ball he is out of the contest.
Another issue with the forwards has been getting sucked too far up the ground and not working back quick enough. Yes you have to play up the ground for the zone but they need to watch a replay of the Hawks forwards over and over and over during summer.
The other issue late in the season was midfield turnovers, hard for the forwards to get a rythem and be predicting the second or third possession going forward when the first one gets kicked straight to the opposition.

Getting back to Bellchambers what is wrong with your third forward kicking 30 goals in a season ?
 

BrunoV

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The issue was never about Bellchambers' ability to hit the score board. It was having a immobile player playing 60-70% of game time in a forwardline that is largely static.

The lack of movement doesn't favour Hurley, Crameri, our smalls and is a problem when the ball hits the deck as frequently as it does.

I think you've got the best of it in your post but I can't agree that Bellchambers should be spending the majority of time forward because he doesn't cover enough ground. He is a perfect guy to dump at full forward and kick it high to 20-30% if game time as a change of tactic. It is almost useless when it is plan A.
 

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Zach Package

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reckon they're just too Tippett conscious, just because he's there doesn't mean you kick it to him every time. Like the 2nd half last night, the swans are at their best when they're unpredictable going forward
 
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I don't like the thought of having the ball just rebounding out of a Daniher/TBC forwardline pretty much at will.

I really like Bellchambers, and I think he'll become a seriously good player (he's threatening it now), but it's like having 3 top class goalkeepers.
 

BrunoV

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As long as the two goalkeepers can take the field at the same time and help the side for the ideal structure, then yes, it is exactly like having multiple top class goal keepers.
 

Eleven 38

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If TBC/JD/Hurley mark it everytime it goes in you don't have to worry about it rebounding, and if we can teach someone to crumb the footy if they dont mark it that could also help..
 
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As long as the two goalkeepers can take the field at the same time and help the side for the ideal structure, then yes, it is exactly like having multiple top class goal keepers.
How do you play two number one rucks?

It's like playing a goalkeeper at centre-half, unless you have a special combo like Cox/Naita.
 
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Yeah, destroying one very good player and having the other do all the heavy lifting.

So essentially, to get something useful out of two number one rucks, you need the two best rucks of the past 20 years in tandem. That's what we've learnt from every club's various experiments.

And it will only get worse as the interchange cap begins to slide down towards 80 over the next 3-4 years.
 
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