Pretty reasonable to have Smith outside the top 10 #1 rucks - however, I doubt Stanley would be as good a #2 without him.
I think its the combo deal that makes them both successful - he sum of the parts as it were.
Both good individually but better together.
GO Catters
I'm finding this season rather interesting, for all the previous years bleatings about no plan B it is clear now that the last 2 seasons were plan b. Setting up defensively to win the ball on turnover.
What we saw was as King described it "The Geelong Highway" and the "Slingshot" both of these were predicated on conceding losing the hitouts and clearances and setting up behind the ball to run it out, this expended a lot of energy (resulting in 2nd half fades) and would also see us burned numerous times on turnover as we were defensively out of position.
Stark contrast to this season, this season we are winning clearances and hitouts more frequently and have moved more to plan A. Surge the ball forward and lock it in our half, teams are struggling with it for a few reasons.
Firstly they're now doing what we used to, having to run it out of defence and expending lot of energy doing so (our 4th quarters anyone).
This is where the rucks come in, we have the tall and traditional ruckman in Smith who requires a likewise opponent but our no.2 Stanley and Blicavs are both nimble and agile for their size with excellent endurance. This creates a problem, go one ruck (like Adelaide with Jacobs) and we wear them out by the 4th quarter but not many have a capable 2nd ruck who is as athletic and can drift forward. Huge advantage to us. Add in Blicavs being able to tag and play behind the ball in the press and we have a well oiled system atm.
Second conundrum is that because Blicavs and Stanley are athletically exceptional for their size the opposition has a quandary... do they similarly go tall and make themselves slower as not many clubs have athletic tall men like we do, and as such make it easier to apply pressure through our smalls to force pressure long bombs forward... Which as we all know plays into our hands.....
or do they go smaller to try and outrun us thus giving us more tall players for bail out kicks down the line when we set up our press which helps lock the ball in and protect what is a slow and generally tall defence.
This is great evidence as to why the calls last season that our main issue was personnel are looking to be correct.