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Angus Graham

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Every bad game Gus plays, he is slammed. Statistics don't seem to work with you people either.

I'm not saying he is a superstar but the tendency to sink the boot into him on this forum is crazy. If Browne and Derickx were looking like being better in the 1sts, why the **** do you think Hardwick wouldn't play them?

Have some sense people. I am so hoping if/when Gus truly comes good as our #1 ruck I can bump this thread and unleash some scorn.
 
paulvroc said:
Every bad game Gus plays, he is slammed. Statistics don't seem to work with you people either.

I'm not saying he is a superstar but the tendency to sink the boot into him on this forum is crazy. If Browne and Derickx were looking like being better in the 1sts, why the **** do you think Hardwick wouldn't play them?

Have some sense people. I am so hoping if/when Gus truly comes good as our #1 ruck I can bump this thread and unleash some scorn.
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Our first quarters are killing us...we need to apportion blame. I'm not saying that Gus is a dud but either his technique or the Ruck Coaching or both needs to be more effective.... and from the first bounce.
 
Time to give Derickx a go. He looked good in the pre season and Gus has been slaughtered the last couple of weeks.
 

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Barnzy said:
If Lade is really teaching our rucks to focus on the opposition ruckman instead of the ball then he needs to be sacked.
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Interesting Lade was on AW today and he said last year he was Ruck/stoppage coach, and this year is midfield coach with a “small” involvement in the Ruck. I wonder what he meant by that, and if its like he said, then who is responsible for Gus, because NOWAY is he that silly to do it without instruction. Maybe once or twice, but not all game.
 
Ize Of The World said:
I'm surprised people honestly believe we'd be letting him get away with it week in week out. As if. Gus is playing rope-a-dope against the bigger rucks.
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I can see your point and acknowledge Gus is doing an admirable job if his intention is to parade around as a mobile hatstand, impeding the opposition's ruck's path to the ball. Like drop shots in tennis, there is only so many times you can use them before your skill limitations are there for all to see. Time for him to develop new tricks.
 
All those Gus supporters have to concede this guy is a dud. He took his eyes off the ball in the ruck almost every time. Not like he was up against Sandilands this week.
 
Should stop looking at his opposing ruckman at every bounce. Slow as. Surely he is not our future, though Browne is worse. Both appear ******ed in a football sense when anywhere near a loose ball.

Happy to bring in X, though that won't be for a while I'd suggest
 
Cathal Brugha said:
Firstly, that would be some people only so you shouldn't try to water down a contrary position by using generalisations. Secondly, the assumption you have used again in the second statement seems unlikely as Gus is missing Taps to our mid-fielders by some margin. If he was tapping it in their vicinity and we were beaten to the ball than I might agree with you.
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Last season Gus averaged 19.2 hitouts per game with 18.1% or 3.4 hitouts to advantage per game. Prior to todays game he was averaging 23.4 hitouts with 27.5% or 6.4 hitouts to advantage per game. So you're right, it is his fault we're not winning the clearances, seeing he is obviously doing a lousy job of hitting our midfielders on the chest.
 
Ty German said:
All those Gus supporters have to concede this guy is a dud. He took his eyes off the ball in the ruck almost every time. Not like he was up against Sandilands this week.
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Fair effort then to win the hitouts 29-22 when he wasn't even looking at the ball. :eek:
 
I just dont think Gus work's hard enough around the ground. It's alright to get 25-35 hit-out's per week but the thing thats separates the likes of Cox, Sandilands, Jamar and Ottens even from the rest is there ability to work hard and get the 20+ possies a game to go along with the tap-out's.
 

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Needs to push back to the goal line and get a hand on the ball,
about 5 set-shots from the Dogs should have been touched.
 
RT73 said:
Last season Gus averaged 19.2 hitouts per game with 18.1% or 3.4 hitouts to advantage per game. Prior to todays game he was averaging 23.4 hitouts with 27.5% or 6.4 hitouts to advantage per game. So you're right, it is his fault we're not winning the clearances, seeing he is obviously doing a lousy job of hitting our midfielders on the chest.
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Man, there you go serving up those pointless stats sh!t again. Did you actually see today's game or just reviewing the fantasy footy scores? We got smashed in the ruck almost every time Doofus was in the ruck. He was lousy. Didn't jump, took his eyes off the ball, and no contested marks when they matter. Just have a look at the impact the other rucks had on the game. Minson took some huge grabs in the forward (plus goals). Vickery likewise. Hudson was huge around the clearances. Not like he was up against elite ruck stocks today either.
 
Was an absolute carbon rod today. Slow, lumbering, woeful kick, terrible timer of ruck hitouts. Will get absolutely slaughtered by hill and ryder next week. Time to give someone else a go. :thumbsd:
 
I have supported Gus on this forum... and I believe he is our best ruck atm. I was not impressed with him today in a number of instances. The goal they scored on the siren when he failed to touch it was because of poor positioning and he possibly could have got to another couple.

I'm not sure how well our midfield group are reading Gus or perhaps they are not communicating very well as he won several taps that went straight to Boyd and co and a couple in our forward line when he tapped to the outside of play when all our runners were inside... looked stupid. Poor game IMO but he should keep his spot because we will need him to play well against the Dons talls.... big test for him next week.
 
Ty German said:
Man, there you go serving up those pointless stats sh!t again. Did you actually see today's game or just reviewing the fantasy footy scores? We got smashed in the ruck almost every time Doofus was in the ruck. He was lousy. Didn't jump, took his eyes off the ball, and no contested marks when they matter. Just have a look at the impact the other rucks had on the game. Minson took some huge grabs in the forward (plus goals). Vickery likewise. Hudson was huge around the clearances. Not like he was up against elite ruck stocks today either.
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We got smashed in the middle not because of Gus but because our midfielders were beaten to the ball, anyone who watched the game would have clearly known that to be the case.

You simply don't win the hitouts and lose the clearances unless something is going wrong at ground level and you don't win hitouts if you take your eyes off the ball every time.
 

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LuKe2428 said:
I just dont think Gus work's hard enough around the ground. It's alright to get 25-35 hit-out's per week but the thing thats separates the likes of Cox, Sandilands, Jamar and Ottens even from the rest is there ability to work hard and get the 20+ possies a game to go along with the tap-out's.
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Gus played his 41st game today, Cox played his 209th, Sandilands his 163rd, Ottens played his 232nd this week and Jamar has played 101. I believe that if Graham can continue to work hard he too can get to a similar sort of level once he reaches the same sort of experience that these blokes have.
 
RT73 said:
Gus played his 41st game today, Cox played his 209th, Sandilands his 163rd, Ottens played his 232nd this week and Jamar has played 101. I believe that if Graham can continue to work hard he too can get to a similar sort of level once he reaches the same sort of experience that these blokes have.
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RT, you miss the whole point of the debate on Gus because you are so infatuated with his fantasy footy score. If you watched today's game, can you tell me one thing he did today that made an impact on the game? He's 20+ hitouts which you claim he had were next to useless considering the impact his ruck oponents had on the game. You trying to convince everyone he was more effective than Minson, Hudson or Vickery today.
 
i want gus to b dropped for that weak insipid performance lets face it he is a liability atm .i wouldnt mind vickory and post rucking in tandum .
 
Geez there's some pathetic comments on this thread tonight.

'He doesn't even look at the ball.'

Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to sit there through 7 weeks of watching Graham ruck this way at centre bounces without realising he's doing it entirely under instruction, let alone after it's been pointed out repeatedly on the forum for weeks now?

'Plays like Jane. Soft as butter.'

He out-bodied Hudson heaps of times tonight and smashed him in the hitouts around the ground - he was clearly the stronger ruckman, he failed to capitalise on it as often as we'd ideally hope.

'All his hitouts go to the opposition.'

It's been pointed out week after week that Graham is doing as well at getting hitouts to advantage as numerous players rated very good ruckmen, even more so considering he's conceding most centre bounces. A player barely into his 2nd season as a no.1 ruck comes out and beats a very good ruckman in Hudson, monsters him in plenty of contests throughout the night, and some of you want to whinge that not enough of his hitouts were to our advantage? Or that he wasn't Hudson's equal around the ground when the Dogs' superior ball movement set Hudson up far better all night? Hats off to the pelican who complained Graham wasn't as influential as Minson or Vickery when both spent nearly the entire night in the forwardline. :o

Graham had an average night, but he held his own OK against a good opponent and gave us plenty of glimpses of future upside - we had at least 9-10 others who were worse and very few you could say were genuinely good.

This weekly scapegoating of Graham is getting very old and some of the participants should try leveling their criticism after games like this at the top echelon of players first. Newman was poor tonight, which makes it 4/7 below par games from him this year, mostly playing on nobody, and barely a whisper of criticism directed towards him. If Graham had turned in four performances at a level as far below expectations as those four of Newman's, people would want him delisted in preference to him playing for the Coburg reserves. Newman will have ten games like that before the year is out and he does most years. Cotchin, Foley, Martin, Deledio and Reiwoldt won't be far behind him.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people insist on holding developing players in the 12-30 best players bracket with less than 50 games to their name to significantly higher standards than they hold their captain to, or the blokes they consider stars and amongst the first dozen picked.
 
Ty German said:
RT, you miss the whole point of the debate on Gus because you are so infatuated with his fantasy footy score. If you watched today's game, can you tell me one thing he did today that made an impact on the game? He's 20+ hitouts which you claim he had were next to useless considering the impact his ruck oponents had on the game. You trying to convince everyone he was more effective than Minson, Hudson or Vickery today.
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Got nothing to do with his fantasy score, its more to do with his rate of improvement. As mentioned Graham is winning more hitouts and hitting more of them to advantage this year compared to last year, yet for some this isn't good enough. People also claim that he is soft, yet he is the leading tackler amongst ruckmen and is in the top 25 tacklers in the league. All this while playing around 90% of gametime with about 90% of that spent on the ball.

If you look back through the thread you will see that I've said there are things that Gus needs to work on and given he has only played 41 games there is still plenty of time for that to happen. Many posters here don't see it, but Gus is having a breakout season this year. All his stats have improved and no matter what anyone says that is a clear sign that Gus is improving as a player.

Is Gus ever going to be an AA ruckman? I doubt it, then again I doubt anyone thought Jamar would be one prior to last year(which was his 8th), yet now he is widely considered to be one of the top rucks in the league. Amazing what happens when you actually let ruckmen fully develop before putting high expectations on them.
 

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