dlanod
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Fair enough. I don't agree in totality with your summation of the ruck stocks of those sides but just a moot point. If you have 2 good rucks you play them. Particularly if one of them is capable of marking when not rucking. Melbourne now have the luxury of resting Gawn on the ground , rather than on the bench if they so choose. They're an extreme case, but in our situation we were found out this year with very little help for Oscar resulting in him getting tired which is perhaps why he chose to manouvre rather than front on jump in that last ruck contest . Which probably cost us a spot in a PF. In hindsight.
Funnily enough I tend to agree with your broad thesis, just not how many teams actually manage to pull it off.
A player that can be an effective forward and an adequate ruckman (Hale, Vardy-ish) is gold. A player that can be an effective ruckman and effective at any other position is platinum (Grundy - mid, Jackson - forward). If you have either of those kinds of players you absolutely play them and they give you a massive edge. The problem is that those are few and fair between, and too many people focus on the idea of these kinds of players rather than the actual players that let you achieve it.
Playing two rucks where neither are effective in a secondary role is a lot less successful plan, which is why you see very few effective clubs attempt it - they'd rather play one ruck and make do with someone else because that someone else is going to be able to have a larger impact on the game in the 80% of the time they're not in the ruck.
This is also probably why we're seeing Smith being trained up forward rather than the ruck - if you're big and willing to contest a ruck contest (unlike Daniher or Ballenden), that's all that's needed out of that 20% of the time if you're also an effective forward.
If we wanted to use two rucks, the best opportunity is to move Oscar back forward because he is that "golden" player I mentioned earlier, while also being a credible starting ruckman. However that means one of our tall forwards drop out so unless we're trading off a McStay or a Hipwood to bring in the new ruck someone's stuck in the reserves and most likely leaving after that year. Secondly, we'd have to get a ruck that is definitely better than Oscar for it to be an improvement and there's really only a handful that are unambiguously better - and all are cemented into their team.




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