Assuming my stab at their plans was accurate my one wood for the remainder of the season would be Wills to relieve in the ruck and go with more run so Noble would have come in. I had minor concerns that this would be the week that would be exploited, but with Preuss out I would be swinging a late change.
There’s two factors for me with this potential decision:
1. Ball movement has been our biggest struggle in 2019.
2. Chemistry in defence trumps individual ability.
I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to challenge our smalls to improve our ball movement. Having Cox and Grundy long down the line has been too much of a crutch when we get caught in the pocket so I would have gone smaller to have the boys generate more run. I think the second factor is self explanatory.
My 3 wood, and only used in a break in case of emergency situation such as WC or Brisbane dominating Wills, would be Moore forward/ ruck because we know he is a better forward than Roughead and he’s missed enough footy for it not to have a significant impact on defensive chemistry.
Edit: another way to look at it is that the match committee are highly paid professionals whose job is literally to come up with solutions to problems like Cox’s injury and the best they’ve got is something any BigFooty nuffie could come up with on their lunch break? Is that really good enough?
Obviously the option to play Moore as a forward/ruck is one that is not in front of the match committee this week. FWIW, i agree that Moore is the guy I'd be playing forward/ruck if available.
There is only one other option this week on our list to provide relief ruck to Grundy and potentially play forward, and that is Max Lynch. But his form doesn't really warrant it, and playing 2 genuine rucks isn't going to help with our speed at ground level. Roughead is at least a more flexible option.
I really don't think using Wills as a backup ruck is a real option. We seriously need to consider managing Grundy through the next few weeks. We don't want to beat him up having to ruck 95% of the time. He needs to be in peak condition for finals. Sending Rupert Wills against Max Gawn would be catastrophic in my opinion.
The only other option I can see would have been to name Tyson Goldsack and throw him into the ruck, but again that's not going to work.
I think the match committee are making the only logical decision in front of it which is to use Roughead as the back-up ruck (the guy is a premiership ruckman afterall!). I assume he is also going to play forward as well. Again, that strikes me as the only logical decision.
You note that our ball movement has been awful, yet you want us to go with a midget forward line. Small forward lines only work if ball movement is good, because you don't have the bail out kick to a contest. The small forward line worked last week because Gold Coast put no pressure on us. Admittingly, Melbourne isn't the best defensive transition team either...but they at least have a stronger backline on paper and a better midfield, so we aren't going to get as many clearances.
It's a precarious situation, and question marks should be aimed at list management for the fact we have no KPF depth.
I think however the decision this week is the right one based on the cattle we have available. If we don't have anyone to provide a contest up forward, then May and Lever will have a field day intercepting.
I agree chemistry is important. It is my preference to not mess with our defensive structures. But I think the situation is dire enough that the match committee has no choice. The suggestions put forward by you above won't work in my opinion.