Opinion Port's Ruck Situation

[davesnothere]

Not by itself it doesn't and it's laughable to argue it does.

Dante had a great game for a 2nd gamer, but he had a great game because of what he did at contests, not for simply being at them.

Scott Lycett attended more ruck contests last week before being subbed out in what was a famously awful ruck performance which lost us the game. Him getting to extra contests didn't make him a better ruckman, he was so bad he should have retired immediately. Lycett attended even more ruck contests against Carlton where he was smashed off the park by a no-name ruckman in De Koning.

Dante was great because he actively nullified O'Brien and stopped him from having his usual influence both at the stoppages and around the ground. He was okay around the ground, just okay, but that's all you expect from a ruck of his experience.

Lycett also toweled up English a month ago.

Lycett is playing though injury but putting in.
Pain free he's a pretty useful ruck.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Lycett also toweled up English a month ago.

Lycett is playing though injury but putting in.
Pain free he's a pretty useful ruck.

Ah but English got to more ruck contests and spent more time on the ground in that game, so actually who towelled up whom?

Or are you suggesting there are other metrics to measure how a 1st ruck plays?

 

[davesnothere]

Ah but English got to more ruck contests and spent more time on the ground in that game, so actually who towelled up whom?

Or are you suggesting there are other metrics to measure how a 1st ruck plays?

Both are able to spend 90% of the game on the ground. Both are able to get to 100 plus contests in a game.

That is a prerequisite of the job.

In 2023 clubs play one ruck.

You want to be a AFL ruck you need to be prepared to own the job.

Once we establish you are capable of owning the job we look at other aspects of your game.

Pace/ work ethic / football IQ / ablity to defend

Even tap work.

You do not have the athletic ablity to stay on the ground and own the job you don't get past 1st base.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Both are able to spend 90% of the game on the ground. Both are able to get to 100 plus contests in a game.

That is a prerequisite of the job.

In 2023 clubs play one ruck.

You want to be a AFL ruck you need to be prepared to own the job.

Once we establish you are capable of owning the job we look at other aspects of your game.

Pace/ work ethic / football IQ / ablity to defend

Even tap work.

You do not have the athletic ablity to stay on the ground and own the job you don't get past 1st base.

This is just a complete fantasy.

The highest average ruck contests in the AFL this season is Tim English with 78.9

Only 8 ruckmen league wide average over 70 ruck contests.

The highest TOG% for ruckman this season is English again at 85.6

Only 10 ruckmen league wide average over 80% TOG

Nobody in the league meets your requirements. You're like Robot Santa from Futurama.

Scott Lycett averages 60 ruck contests and 70.7%TOG this season.

Sam Hayes attends on average a higher percentage of ruck contests in games he plays than Scott Lycett over the past 2 seasons.

Lycett and Teakle are both coming off consecutive games where their direct opponent was the best player on the ground. Getting to a lot of contests is meaningless if you are getting your arse handed to you at every one.

Do you have any interest in actually engaging with these points or are you just going to ignore them and keep peddling what you know at this point are mistruths?

 

[davesnothere]

This is just a complete fantasy.

The highest average ruck contests in the AFL this season is Tim English with 78.9

Only 8 ruckmen league wide average over 70 ruck contests.

The highest TOG% for ruckman this season is English again at 85.6

Only 10 ruckmen league wide average over 80% TOG

Nobody in the league meets your requirements. You're like Robot Santa from Futurama.

Scott Lycett averages 60 ruck contests and 70.7%TOG this season.

Sam Hayes attends on average a higher percentage of ruck contests in games he plays than Scott Lycett over the past 2 seasons.

Lycett and Teakle are both coming off consecutive games where their direct opponent was the best player on the ground. Getting to a lot of contests is meaningless if you are getting your arse handed to you at every one.

Do you have any interest in actually engaging with these points or are you just going to ignore them and keep peddling what you know at this point are mistruths?

They all have the ability to stay out there for 100 minutes.

Take averages out of the equation.

Name an AFL ruck you don't believe can ruck 100 minutes in a game and isn't on Ports list.

Max Gawn at a quick look 117 minutes of 128
What's the maths there? 91.5 approximately?
English has one at 92%
Witts 84% at the weekend
Gawn 88% 120 minutes on the weekend
Stanley 120 minutes at 84% round 1
Witts 87.3 round 1
English 87.2 round 2
Witts 90.5 round 2
Goldstein 86.8 round 2

Once I've hit Goldstein I think I'm making my point.

You are expected to have the athletic ablity to stay out on the ground if need be for 90% of the game as a Ruck. You might not have to but the athletic ablity has to be there.


20 year old Dante game 2 stuck it out for 76.5% of the game and just shy of 100 minutes.

Don't think there's anyone who wants to question Dantes athletic ablity or doubts he'll be a 90% game time ruck.

I'm sick of sledging Sam Hayes he's a good kid.

 

[El_Scorcho]

They all have the ability to stay out there for 100 minutes.

100 minutes is approximately 80% game time.

Sam Hayes round 6 2022, 83% game time
Sam Hayes round 7 2022, 80% game time

Lycett has games where he rucks less as well, we quite regularly rotate Dixon through, especially against the better quality rucks.

Teakle has great aerobic capacity for a ruckman, but so would a middle distance runner. You have to be able to ruck as well or you're just getting to a lot of contests and losing them.

Dante shows great promise, but he's not a better ruckman right now. He played a solid negating role on O'Brien and should be proud of himself, but he's a couple of years away.

 

[davesnothere]

There isn't a single '90% game time ruck' in the league you bellend.

English/Gawn/Grundy/Darcy/Mcinerney/Teakle
all have the ability to ruck 90% of the game.

Pretty sure even Billy Frampton has a 90% game against his name.

 

[El_Scorcho]

English/Gawn/Grundy/Darcy/Mcinerney/Teakle
all have the ability to ruck 90% of the game.

Pretty sure even Billy Frampton has a 90% game against his name.

Nice that you've shifted the goalposts from 100 minutes to 90% game time, and you haven't even really done that, you're just arguing the wishy washy hypothetical of "has the ability to play 90% gametime".

Lycett has rucked 90% gametime just twice in his career with us. Both were after he'd already played 100 games at AFL level. We regularly use Dixon and Finlayson in the ruck, even when Lycett is fit and firing. Teakle has no 90% games for us. We keep our rucks fresh.

Billy Frampton definitely has 90% games, because he mostly plays as a defender, which is a less demanding position where lots of players average high 90s. When he spent 4 weeks as first ruck this year, he averaged 80.25%

 

[davesnothere]

Nice that you've shifted the goalposts from 100 minutes to 90% game time, and you haven't even really done that, you're just arguing the wishy washy hypothetical of "has the ability to play 90% gametime".

Lycett has rucked 90% gametime just twice in his career with us. Both were after he'd already played 100 games at AFL level. We regularly use Dixon and Finlayson in the ruck, even when Lycett is fit and firing. Teakle has no 90% games for us. We keep our rucks fresh.

Billy Frampton definitely has 90% games, because he mostly plays as a defender, which is a less demanding position where lots of players average high 90s. When he spent 4 weeks as first ruck this year, he averaged 80.25%

I think Billy has a 90% as a Ruck.
Just looking
86.2 % vs Bombers close?
100 minutes vs Crows
Makes my point Billy while Rucking for Collingwood made the effort to stay out there.

I have always said had the athletic ablity to play 100 minutes if required. Of course players are managed and don't every week but they do have to have the athletic ablity to play 100 minutes if required.

Go though the stats and look at how often the the top end Rucks are getting around the 85-90% mark.

Teakle has 87.6% against the Eagles. Close enough.


My point is and always has been it the toughest role on the ground and the one position on the ground you have to own.

It is not a position you can hide a player who is not physically capable of playing the position.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I think Billy has a 90% as a Ruck.
Just looking
86.2 % vs Bombers close?
100 minutes vs Crows
Makes my point Billy while Rucking for Collingwood made the effort to stay out there.

I have always said had the athletic ablity to play 100 minutes if required. Of course players are managed and don't every week but they do have to have the athletic ablity to play 100 minutes if required.

Go though the stats and look at how often the the top end Rucks are getting around the 85-90% mark.

Teakle has 87.6% against the Eagles. Close enough.


My point is and always has been it the toughest role on the ground and the one position on the ground you have to own.

It is not a position you can hide a player who is not physically capable of playing the position.

Teakle played 87.6% and his direct opponent had the best game of his career.

Again, a distance runner could get to a lot of contests. Being the Kane Mitchell of ruckmen isn't a good thing. He also has to be able to compete against his opponent.

Frampton's 87 is an outlier. His other 3 games were 76, 77 and 81. Which are fine, normal levels of time on ground for a ruckman but you've set elite ruckmen expectations that almost nobody ever meets.

Hayes has played 100 minutes games. That's been demonstrated to you. He'd have played more if he'd been given more of a go. But if Hayes was getting an absolute bath every time he stepped on the ground, it wouldn't matter if his TOG% was 100%.

Only 9 clubs have a first 11 ruckman averaging 80%.

Lycett has reached this mythical 90% mark just twice since he arrived at the club. This season, even if you ignore the three games he's had to be subbed out, Lycett is averaging just 77%.

Again, a perfectly normal and reasonable average TOG% for a starting ruck, but if we're holding one ruckman to that standard, we have to do it for all of them, right?

Or we could, you know, just judge them on their overall performance and our performances as a stoppage unit, compared and contrasted with the opposition ruck's performance, because Visentini played a much better game than any of Teakle's games this year despite not getting to 80%TOG.

 

[davesnothere]

Teakle played 87.6% and his direct opponent had the best game of his career.

Again, a distance runner could get to a lot of contests. Being the Kane Mitchell of ruckmen isn't a good thing. He also has to be able to compete against his opponent.

Frampton's 87 is an outlier. His other 3 games were 76, 77 and 81. Which are fine, normal levels of time on ground for a ruckman but you've set elite ruckmen expectations that almost nobody ever meets.

Hayes has played 100 minutes games. That's been demonstrated to you. He'd have played more if he'd been given more of a go. But if Hayes was getting an absolute bath every time he stepped on the ground, it wouldn't matter if his TOG% was 100%.

Only 9 clubs have a first 11 ruckman averaging 80%.

Lycett has reached this mythical 90% mark just twice since he arrived at the club. This season, even if you ignore the three games he's had to be subbed out, Lycett is averaging just 77%.

Again, a perfectly normal and reasonable average TOG% for a starting ruck, but if we're holding one ruckman to that standard, we have to do it for all of them, right?

Or we could, you know, just judge them on their overall performance and our performances as a stoppage unit, compared and contrasted with the opposition ruck's performance, because Visentini played a much better game than any of Teakle's games this year despite not getting to 80%TOG.

Lycett is cactus. His back is shot and he's on one leg. Lycett is not physically capable of spending the time on ground that we want him to spend on the ground.

Lycett is out there because up until now we have not had another option.

Wouldn't knock Baily Williams too much he actually coming along ok. 23 and 45 games under his belt after being thrown in at the deep end with Nic Nats injury issues. He does plenty right.

 

[PowerBaz]

This kid looks good. Assuming Ken will drop him because he rested Lycett for this game.

On Frampton, if this kid wins a GF medal and we still are yet to win a prelim it would I can’t say I won’t be happy for him.

Meanwhile we signed Ken up.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Lycett is cactus. His back is shot and he's on one leg. Lycett is not physically capable of spending the time on ground that we want him to spend on the ground.

Lycett is out there because up until now we have not had another option.

Wouldn't knock Baily Williams too much he actually coming along ok. 23 and 45 games under his belt after being thrown in at the deep end with Nic Nats injury issues. He does plenty right.

Lycett has averaged 80% give or take in every season he's been here. As I said, he's hit 90% in just 2 games. Even in his prime he wasn't a 90% guy, because he doesn't need to and the coaches don't want him to.

You can argue that he's hit high 80s a lot but given his average is 80, that means there are lots of games where he's hitting low 70s.

Bailey Williams is starting to hit some form because he's been backed in for an extended run of games, who'd have thunk it. At the time of his game against Teakle it was his highest career supercoach score by 43 points.

 

[El_Scorcho]

You wouldn't know it by reading this thread.

This thread has gone slightly off topic due to Dave, who isn't a Hayes fan, suggesting that there is an incredibly high fitness floor for ruckmen that Hayes doesn't meet but everyone else does or could.

This has led to a pretty fun deep dive into how many ruck contests players are getting to and how much time they spend on the ground, and I think we're all more knowledgeable footy supporters because of it.

I'd play Visentini again this week. He held his own well against a very good, very experienced ruckman and Lycett is having some possibly fitness related form issues and needs either a rest or a rocket as we come into a finals series where we should be winning the flag.

 

[davesnothere]

Lycett has averaged 80% give or take in every season he's been here. As I said, he's hit 90% in just 2 games. Even in his prime he wasn't a 90% guy, because he doesn't need to and the coaches don't want him to.

You can argue that he's hit high 80s a lot but given his average is 80, that means there are lots of games where he's hitting low 70s.

Bailey Williams is starting to hit some form because he's been backed in for an extended run of games, who'd have thunk it. At the time of his game against Teakle it was his highest career supercoach score by 43 points.

I'm not going to get stuck into Sam but Port obviously have formed an opinion on what Sam brings to the table and they've burnt a million dollars coming to that opinion and you don't admit you've made a million dollar mistake easily.

 

[Schulzenfest]

This thread has gone slightly off topic due to Dave, who isn't a Hayes fan, suggesting that there is an incredibly high fitness floor for ruckmen that Hayes doesn't meet but everyone else does or could.

This has led to a pretty fun deep dive into how many ruck contests players are getting to and how much time they spend on the ground, and I think we're all more knowledgeable footy supporters because of it.

Well, all of us except Dave himself at least.

I'm not going to get stuck into Sam but Port obviously have formed an opinion on what Sam brings to the table and they've burnt a million dollars coming to that opinion and you don't admit you've made a million dollar mistake easily.

How many millions and millions of dollars do you think we've spent on Hinkley who is apparently about to be imminently re-signed again?

The club gets it wrong a lot.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Well, all of us except Dave himself at least.

I think he probably has.

Arguments like this are ultimately good for the board. The eye test is enough for me to know Hayes should have been given more games but it's also good for my footy knowledge to have to defend that position.

 

[Macca19]

The question with Hayes is not whether he can get to a lot of contests in an isolated game. Every ruckman should be able to do that. Its does he have the stamina to compete game after game, week after week, cop the knocks, the niggles and keep going, 22 weeks of the year. Evidence from last year, as his game time decreased each week, is maybe not. At his age and in the system for that long we should know the answer to that now.

Teakle is an athlete. His football side is s**t. That may cost him a spot in the squad. I guess the hope is with another pre season they might be able to teach him how to compete more. Otherwise bye.

Dante is hopefully the mix of the two in time.

 

[Honeyboy Wilson]

What makes a ruckman?
Is it the ruckwoman in his hands?

 

[Ford Fairlane]

They're just trolling us now.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Looking at Briggs and Sean Darcy

4

Sean Darcy

Age

25

Ht

203cm

Wt

111kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.1

3star

K

3.4

1star

HB

6.6

4star

CL

2.4

4star

HO

28.8

5star

D

6.8

1star

K

2.0

1star

HB

4.8

3star

CL

1.8

4star

HO

20.3

5star

D

11.4

3star

K

4.6

2star

HB

6.8

5star

CL

2.6

5star

HO

32.0

5star

, there is a spot for a ruckman built like a rugby Lock. Briggs is a force of nature and was mobile too, getting clearances and even on the end of a couple.

Don't know if we would look at a player with that build but they are out there.

 

[davo999]

A good ruck can go forward and take a mark and kick a goal , go back and take an intercept or saving mark and be at least 50/50 in the ruck contests

 

[Sneeky]

Not port

 

[Peninsula Boy]

It was the first time I saw Briggs and he was very impressive and killed Hayes.

He's only played a handful of games and has the moxie to be a ruck and kinda thinks on occasion that he's a midfielder. There was a passage of play in the centre where he won it and did the one, two but wanted it back for the three.

I thought Hayes beat Keeffe though.

 

[Peninsula Boy]

Our midfield is so good that when our ruckmen is winning, we look unstoppable.
When our ruckmen is breaking even, we are usually pretty good, if not, great, but can be under as well.
When our ruckmen is bad, we struggle but have the capacity to play well.

We just need a good to great ruckmen.

I'm hoping for dear life that we have something in the works as it is fumble city at the moment.