but that is a crazy thing to say. you laud vardy and blitz as being ahead of west in most catagories but bytiny amounts, like 1 handball or half a mark, yet west is up by over 10 hitouts and you say that isnt huge?
Firstly I didnt exactly 'laud' Blicavs/Vardy for their advantage over West in disposals/everything-apart-from-hit-outs; in fact I acknowledged your point that there wasn't a helluva lot in it.
But there
is a differential in most categories, and they nearly always favoured the more inexperienced pair.
As for my argument re : hit-outs - put it this way; Sandilands might get say 50 hit-outs in a good match; even at his most dominant he'd still probably 'only' take 3-4 contested marks.
Ruckmen have the opportunity to amass big numbers when it comes to hit-outs because it's just them and their opponent contesting (9 times outta 10).
if yer man West lost the hit-out count 40-50 against Sandilands, you'd probably take that.
but if West took 0.6 of a contested mark

and his opponent took a couple, then he's effectively doubled West in that statistic.
A difference in a couple of contested marks per game can be the difference between Travis Cloke and Chris Dawes over the course of a season.
Blicavs (I usually focus on him in the Vardy/West/Blicavs debate, because he seems to be the ugly duckling with the Go-West crowd) obviously played more games than West for 2013, but his 63-23 'edge' in marks, coupled with a 14-6 advantage in contested marks, paints a picture as to just how ineffectual West is. This is a bloke who has played
7 more seasons than Blicavs remember.
Same goes for tackles (69-12 in Blicavs favour); make 1-2 and you're making the minimal contribution, make 6-8 and you've put in a solid effort.
Again I acknowledge Blicavs played more games than West, that's why the averages are more instructive obviously. But who's to say West's averages wouldn't have plummeted to even greater depths had he been given more games ?