M Rucci - Outstanding Article

[macca23]

IMO just another article typical of Rucci, some facts, some good points, but also missing all the possitive facts and with the ussual cheap shots at NC and the club. Its just a pity he cant write anything remotely critical of his own team. I'm still waiting for the 'Is Tredders finished' article about his constant battle with knee injuries of the past 2-3 years. Or maybe the who is going to replace Wakelin, Wilson, Lade and Tredrea article that surely must be on the agenda since they are the back bone of the PAFC and all due for retirement in the next few years. Not holding my breath on those being published though.

Beautifully summed up!!

I was only saying yesterday that we haven't had the regular cheap shot from Rucci for a while - we must be due very soon, and he didn't let any of us down.

You have to give Rucci points for consistency. He doesn't say much, but when he does, it means fk-all.

 

[Drummond]

you gotta wonder that if campbell, pfiefer and meeson hadn't been minidrafted to norwood, wether or not drummond would be cracker boners about them every second??

Meesen was mini drafted to Norwood.

Campbell came down from Wagga and had played 3 years with Norwood before being drafted by the Crows. So no, he wasn't mini drafted.

And Pfeiffer is a Norwood lad so sure as heck wasn't mini drafted.

How about you get your facts straight?

OK then.

 

[Smoooothy]

Meesen was mini drafted to Norwood.

Campbell came down from Wagga and had played 3 years with Norwood before being drafted by the Crows. So no, he wasn't mini drafted.

And Pfeiffer is a Norwood lad so sure as heck wasn't mini drafted.

How about you get your facts straight?


OK then.

ok, so i was wrong on 2 of them, so what, still a valid point!

do we ever hear anything positive come from you about other players on our list in the sanfl, rarely!

 

[*PAF]

... Its just a pity he cant write anything remotely critical of his own team. ...

Fairly sure he wrote similar articles back in 2005.

... I'm still waiting for the 'Is Tredders finished' article about his constant battle with knee injuries of the past 2-3 years. ...

Hmmm. 2 to 3 years?
2004 and 2005 were two of his best years. Should have been AA in 2005.
Make that appreoximately 1 year only.

... Or maybe the who is going to replace Wakelin, Wilson, Lade and Tredrea article that surely must be on the agenda since they are the back bone of the PAFC and all due for retirement in the next few years. Not holding my breath on those being published though.

Apart from Lade early in the season, and who we do not have an outstanding replacement for as yet, none of the others mentioned have been in our best players plus Wakelin cannot get a game even though he is fit.
Wilbur will struggle to get a game next year if Thomas gets fit and Tredrea is not only younger, but has had less injury problems than Burton.
Perhaps you could add PB to that list, although we now have Pearce and Krakouer that play a similar style of game.

 

[relapse]

All I will say is that Rucci is altering history again. Most of us that have been here for a while remember the infamous “You cant handle truth” rubbish from Rucci where he was writing article after article about our squad and how the players on our squad weren’t good enough and that there needed to be a massive cleanout and that the younger guys on the list weren’t any good and that any Adelaide fans that thought Adelaide’s list was in denial any good couldn’t handle the truth.

Yet he now claims that Adelaide were just underperforming and didn’t really surprise anyone in 2005 considering the strength of our squad. Just more invented rubbish from the biggest hypocrite journalist in South Australia.
He does have a point IMO, but keeps it layered in his anti-AFC rubbish. I am sick of hearing of people supposedly cant handle the truth when Rucci actually has clearly displayed time and time again that he has no idea what the truth actually

 

[Minotaur]

What I don't get on your board is the firm belief (Mr Drummond aside) that the inclusion of mid-age, mid-standard players (Shirley, Doughty, Welsh, Perrie etc) somehow makes you a better team than the inclusion of promising youngsters.

A good 18 or 19 year old surely brings more to the team than an average 25 year old.

 

[Campbell's Chunky]

What I don't get on your board is the firm belief (Mr Drummond aside) that the inclusion of mid-age, mid-standard players (Shirley, Doughty, Welsh, Perrie etc) somehow makes you a better team than the inclusion of promising youngsters.

A good 18 or 19 year old surely brings more to the team than an average 25 year old.

Depends on where you are at.

If you are on top of the ladder and flying towards a premiership, then, generally, no.

If you are quite a way off the mark, then, generally, yes.

 

[birdmanptr]

Overall his development of the young players while he’s been in charge has been alright. He’s drafted some quality kids and some are regulars in our team, but the process of blooding the youngsters is happening far too slowly and if he showed as much faith in guys like Pfeiffer, Hinge, Meesen ect as some of the regulars in our 22 then we would be much better off than we currently are.

I agree with you here Hinge played a quarter and a half against Sydney looked ok and not out of place now that he is fit again put him in tell him he has 3 or 4 weeks and lets see.

I will be very PI**ED of if come round 22 Messon has not been tried and not just in Ruck lets see if he can play CHB CHF FF .

Gill looks ok it appears we have something to work on there so who else becomes a forward Messon,Maric Griffin,Sellar or do we turn Biglands into one but with the first 4 mention we have to do it now not in the pre season 08.

 

[bluesfan]

That article was written very well. Even though it was at the expense of the Adelaide Footy Club, he made some valid points and backed them up. I recall that when I was going through all the club's selections of players from last year's draft back then, I wasn't too sure at all with Nick Gill particuarly, and to a lesser extent, Bryce Campbell.

I agree with Rucci very much so that James Fantasia was a big loss in terms of having a recruiting officer position vacant. Just wondering, has the club replaced him with somebody as of yet?

 

[Campbell's Chunky]

That article was written very well. Even though it was at the expense of the Adelaide Footy Club, he made some valid points and backed them up. I recall that when I was going through all the club's selections of players from last year's draft back then, I wasn't too sure at all with Nick Gill particuarly, and to a lesser extent, Bryce Campbell.

I agree with Rucci very much so that James Fantasia was a big loss in terms of having a recruiting officer position vacant. Just wondering, has the club replaced him with somebody as of yet?

Matt Rundell who used to do something unrelated to recruiting at St Kilda.

 

[- PC -]

Nuggets of truth linked together in piles of rubbish.

That was my feeling as well.

As an article on conjecture he raises some interesting points and I think the following quote sums up his conjecture

They will push their agenda even harder to prove it is right . . . like a toddler bashes the square peg he want to fit in the round hole.

PKB Mickey

 

[beartoo]

Mr Rucci will look even more stupid than he actually is if the Crows triumph tomorrow night, and if we make the 8. Both things are possible. I reckon the game tomorrow will be close and so do Poower supporters I know.

 

[Crow-mo]

interesting that fanta didn't want Gill or Campbell.

 

[*PAF]

Mr Rucci will look even more stupid than he actually is if the Crows triumph tomorrow night, and if we make the 8. Both things are possible. I reckon the game tomorrow will be close and so do Poower supporters I know.

And just who said you cannot win nor make the finals?

 

[kulak]

This is your problem; you think winning a premiership cannot happen if we were to blood a few youngsters. You are set in your ways in thinking that if we happened to play a few young guys, who had the form to warrant selection, then we would be tanking and playing for picks. That is a complete load of tripe.

Okay, so you claim that playing a few youngsters definitely wouldn't weaken our team.

After we lost to St.Kilda it was clear to most of us that we were in massive strife and wouldn’t do any damage even if we were to make the finals. At that stage we had lost 4 of our last 6 games, bad enough, but as things stand right now we’ve lost 6 of 8 and yet Neil Craig is still desperately trying to field a team that could perhaps scrape into the finals. That's fine but does making the finals make this season a success? Yes we’ve had a horrendous run with injuries and we’ve been extremely unlucky this year, but the fact is we’re 12th and this year is not ours. But he doesn’t seem to want to accept this, and so he won’t roll the dice and play a few youngsters.

But this statement reveals you know that in reality it would. We would have won less games this year if Doughty, Shirley, Massie and Perrie had been left out all year, in favour of the likes of Campbell and Meesen.

Given that we were aiming higher than 10th, it was natural that we would give ourselves the best chance of a Premiership. Considering that, the investment of time in some of our youngsters (esp Griffin, Maric, Douglas) has been more than Craig might have done, and similarly for VB and Knights in previous years.

So we were wrong about being a Premiership threat, and with hindsight this year may have been better targeted at development...bad luck.

I am still far more confident of our chances in 2009 than I was a few years ago.

The article is off the mark - well said Marvin.

 

[jmorg1]

like a toddler bashes the square peg he want to fit in the round hole.

Q.F.T.

 

[birdmanptr]

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22179541-21543,00.html



Couldn't agree with it more.

I know it's probably a stab at the AFC, but you have to read the article on it's merit.

Fantastic.

Sad day WHY cause it is a brilliant article and what we have been wanting from this guys for years no cheap shots no sarcastic back hand complaments and just cold hard facts.

So now that hell has frozen over pigs are flying and the world as we know it has started to end i just want to say

 

[CaptainDangerfield]

Another Rucci article riddled with bias an inaccuracies. He really does treat Sth Aussie footbal fans like fools. Amazing how he will twist the facts in anyway that can refelct badly on the AFC. I especially liked the West Coast and depth comment. Didn't that same WC "depth" get beaten by Port Power by 91 points recently with a handful of key players out.

You're a joke Ruc.

 

[Seanason]

Rucci writes one good article in his lifetime.

This is it.

He has gone to constant ends to bag the crows and after waiting three years we finally slip and hes throwing a party. He is so engulfed in statistics and finding negative things about the crows that he probably doesnt know the pope died.

Up until last night it was all i told you so, i told you they suck! Its like me saying that pigs will fly one day then hanging around 1000 years till they mutate and grow wings and fly.

congrats rucci - but hopefully last night will cork your mouth for the next couple of weeks.

 

[Mong]

I'm not sure why this article is in Bay 114 and not on the main Crows board. I didn't even realise the thread was here.

Anyway, some people are way too soft on Rucci for this one. Sure, maybe the article on its own isn't too bad, but in the context of other articles he's written it is simply filled with contradictions.

Firstly, let's focus on this beauty

Craig's sudden transformation of Adelaide's on-field fortunes - from 12th in 2004 to minor premier in '05 - should not have been a surprise.

Maybe he's right. But if it was so obvious then why couldn't he see it, like so many of us could? We may not have predicted the extent of the turnaround, but we sure saw it as a possibility, unlike Rucci himself. Due to our optimism that the Crows could turn it around and perhaps even, shock horror, make the finals in 2005, we were scorned by Rucci who went into his ridiculous tirade about how Crows fans couldn't handle the truth. The truth he was referring to of course was that the Crows list was one of the worst in the AFL and we were destined for years near the bottom. So what happened? And how can he now say it should not have been a surprise? Is his judgement really that poor? Yes.

But the stupidity doesn't end there.

The point the entire article suggests is that the list has not improved since Gary Ayres left. Yet our list of young players with the ability to make an impact now and in the future is far in excess of what we had in mid 2004 that to even make the comparison shows a complete lack of understanding. That far and away our weakest age group is now in the 24-28 age bracket says it all. That is the age group that should have been coming through in the Ayres years. Can Rucci not see that? It is players in that age group that clubs rely on most. Players at the peak of their game. That age group as a whole is the biggest weakness of our list. How is it that a Chief Football writer with Rucci's experience can not see that? The very criticisms Rucci had of Craig in that article should have been attributed to Ayres.

Craig's transformation of our list was always going to take time. And we haven't had the benefit of particularly high draft picks in Craig's time. It's a work in progress. And there has been significant progress. Hard decisions have had to be made, including releasing players such as Matthew Clarke and a club legend such as Ben Hart. What is interesting, and again shows the contradciton of Rucci is that he was highly critical of letting Matthew Clarke go, and to a lesser extent Ben Hart. Neil Craig hasn't made excuses about the list he inherited and the lack of quality middle aged players. He has simply got on with the job of developing the younger players to fill that hole.

The fact is our list is made old by our over 30 players. But there is no way any of Ricciuto, Edwards, McLeod, Goodwin or Bassett could be delisted. They are too good. Only when they choose to retire in the next one, two, three years will our list age come down.

And I had to laugh when I read Rucci's roast today and saw that he congratulated himself, in the guise of Gary Ayres, for writing this article. What an idiot.

 

[Campbell's Chunky]

I posted it on the main board, but for some reason it's regarded as not footy related.

 

[Campbell's Chunky]

But he's gone from outstanding to outstandingly poor.

More inconsistent than Anthony Rocca.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22247942-21543,00.html

A couple of times he mentions 'it has done more bad than good' or something to that effect.

But you keep reading and get to the end, and realise, he never actually says why.

 

[Damp Squarie]

"There are lingering questions about Adelaide's post-Showdown events."

The only thing that was lingering was the smell of cordite in the "Power" coaches box.


"Craig says it is all about trust. This begins with honesty - and that already appears to have been lost at West Lakes."

Not true Rooch - we honestly think you are an inept mortician.

 

[Seanason]

"Craig says it is all about trust. This begins with honesty - and that already appears to have been lost at West Lakes."

Not true Rooch - we honestly think you are an inept mortician.

Actually, i think hes worse than that but i dont think i can post it on here.

Meet me in the alley in 10 minutes time.