Ruckmen aren't that special

scroda

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This is a message to all those people who have got caught up in the quest for a ruckman either through the trading period (like my beloved Tigers) or in one of three top ruckmen possible to go in the top 15 of the national draft.

If you look back over the past few years, you will struggle to find a premiership team (or for that matter a top two team) that had a week-in week-out dominant ruckman on their list.

Ruckman just aren't that important to a team. For sure, some teams benefit from a strong ruckman (Melbourne this year a case in point) but most teams benefit more from an extremely strong midfield backed up by a number of "quality talls."

The three-time Brisbane premiership squad had the "september specialist" Clark Keating, but does anyone really think he was crucial to their success. They would have won the grand finals with me as their ruckman (and I'm 5"9).

Their opponents Collingwood had the unimpressive Josh Fraser and Essendon had John Barnes and Steven Allesio in 2000 and Peter Somerville in 1993. Before that, the Kangaroos won a premiership with (I think) Matthew Capuano. The Adelaide premiership team DID have a quality tall in Shaun Rehn (but I think David Pittman played on premierhsip day), but I don't remember him being a so-called 'dominant big man." And go back earlier to Hawthorn with Greg Dear, Collingwood with Damian Monkhorst and West Coast with Paul Harding and David Hynes.

None of those names are anywhwere near what many of you are hoping the names Meesen, DeLuca and Wood turn into. (Or what Richmond supporters hope Troy Simmonds will do for our team.)

Just a thought. Over to you...
 

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Hearts to hearts

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#2
We had McKernan as our main ruckman, and Capuano to help out and give Corey the chance to go forward - which he did very ably. Your rucks need to be strong, both in the contests and around the ground to support forwards and backs - I agree they won't be the saviours but I think your argument takes it too far the other way.
 

Ching

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#3
Think Essendon underachieved around 2000 and one of the reasons was probably because they didn't have a dominate ruckmen.
Think Saints are a dominate ruckmen away from being a powerhouse.
Scott Wynd's injury in the finals series cost the Bulldogs dearly in the early 90s.
Ruckmen are just as important as CHFs, but it doesn't mean you can't win premierships without them. The good ones are invaluable.
 

jezza

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#5
I don't think the point about Clark Keating was valid, he was one of the best by far in the GF of 2003, gave them so much momentum out of the middle.

Overall yes, a team with a good enough midfield will still win a lot of games without a dominant ruckman.

However, if you look at the two best teams of the last few years, you'll see that both Port and the Lions had huge depth of good ruckmen (Primus, Lade, Brogan, Thurstans, Keating, MacDonald, McLaren, Charman).
 

Weaver

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#6
The question is not, do you need a dominant ruckman to win a premiership. The question is how do you find even a ho-hum plodder who can break even in the ruck?

You don't recruit a ruckman in the top-20 necessarily because you want someone to win a Brownlow. You recruit one there because if you don't the chance are that you don't even have someone to take the centre bounces.

Even the non-dominant ruckmen you mention would almost all qualify as being one of the best 2-3 ruckmen to emerge from their year group.

It is not their quality / importance which pushes them up the order, it is their rarity.
 

scroda

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I don't think that St Kilda were a dominant ruckman away from a premiership. Statistics will show that they got more clearances against teams with dominant ruckmen than those teams did themselves anyway.

My point is that teams need dominant big men. Whether or not those big men are skilled in the art of rucking is not as important.

I am willing to concede ground and admit that there are very valid points being made by the posters above. Ruckmen are no doubt valuable but I just don't see the need to go out of your way to get one. Hawthorn had the best ruckman all year and look what it did to them. Stephen King was injured a heap and that didn't do Geelong much harm. As much as you want to bag Brad Ottens, up until later in the season when he stopped playing full games in the ruck, he was in the top two in the competition for hit outs - a fat lot of good that did Richmond.

Whilst Primus didn't play all year, Brogan, Lade and Thurstans, whilst very good in the forward half and around the ground, were less influential as ruckmen (from what I remember watching).


________
(I'm just happy to be talking footy :D )
 

Sedat!

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#8
scroda said:
The Adelaide premiership team DID have a quality tall in Shaun Rehn
In the 3 seasons Rehn missed out due to his knee recos ('95,'96,'99), Adelaide finished 12/13th each year. In the 2 years he was injury free, they won premierships. I saw him first hand singularly destroy the Bulldogs in 2 prelims, giving first use to McLeod, Johnson, Goodwin, etc.. and do likewise against the Saints and Kangas in the GF's the following week. The right ruckman can do wonders to a team's ability to win a premiership IMO.
 

Portia

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#9
scroda said:
I don't think that St Kilda were a dominant ruckman away from a premiership. Statistics will show that they got more clearances against teams with dominant ruckmen than those teams did themselves anyway.
Ruckman vs midfield. Midfield will always win because THERE ARE MORE OF THEM.

But how many of those oppositions with dominant ruckmen have an equal or better midfield than St Kilda?

Hawthorn had the best ruckman all year and look what it did to them. Stephen King was injured a heap and that didn't do Geelong much harm. As much as you want to bag Brad Ottens, up until later in the season when he stopped playing full games in the ruck, he was in the top two in the competition for hit outs - a fat lot of good that did Richmond.
If ruckmen were good enough to be the difference between a bottom four finish and finals, they would be the top ten picks every year.

Also, hitouts do not necessarily mean winning ruck.
 

Port01

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#10
Keating was the player that kept Brisbane in it on GF day.
When McClaren was on Port dominated about of the middle, the last half of the third we got a couple of important goals from takeaways.
Keating tiring was a major reason we ran away with it.
 

Crowked

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#11
scroda said:
This is a message to all those people who have got caught up in the quest for a ruckman either through the trading period (like my beloved Tigers) or in one of three top ruckmen possible to go in the top 15 of the national draft.

If you look back over the past few years, you will struggle to find a premiership team (or for that matter a top two team) that had a week-in week-out dominant ruckman on their list.

Ruckman just aren't that important to a team. For sure, some teams benefit from a strong ruckman (Melbourne this year a case in point) but most teams benefit more from an extremely strong midfield backed up by a number of "quality talls."

The three-time Brisbane premiership squad had the "september specialist" Clark Keating, but does anyone really think he was crucial to their success. They would have won the grand finals with me as their ruckman (and I'm 5"9).

Their opponents Collingwood had the unimpressive Josh Fraser and Essendon had John Barnes and Steven Allesio in 2000 and Peter Somerville in 1993. Before that, the Kangaroos won a premiership with (I think) Matthew Capuano. The Adelaide premiership team DID have a quality tall in Shaun Rehn (but I think David Pittman played on premierhsip day), but I don't remember him being a so-called 'dominant big man." And go back earlier to Hawthorn with Greg Dear, Collingwood with Damian Monkhorst and West Coast with Paul Harding and David Hynes.

None of those names are anywhwere near what many of you are hoping the names Meesen, DeLuca and Wood turn into. (Or what Richmond supporters hope Troy Simmonds will do for our team.)

Just a thought. Over to you...
Sean rehn definately played in the Crows 2 premiership teams as the ruckman. In 97 Pittman played on Stewart Lowe. In 98 I think they shared it a bit. In both games though Blighty played 3 ruckmen. 97 -Rehn, Pittman & Aaron Keeting. 98 -Rehn, Pittman & Marsh.

I agree with the more recent ones though. Brisbane didnt really need a ruckman. I think they are becoming less and less important. I'd prefer to have a champ at CHF than in ruck.
 

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#15
Ruckmen are vital to any team.

One of the key performance indicators to a side is clearences, centre, throw in, and stoppages.

The importance of a ruckmen to eithor give his onballers first use, or to move the ball towards goal is absolutely critical, just speak to any afl assistant coach.

What you need to realise is that ruckmen, like any other footballers have there good and bad days, hence there dominance is varied week in week out.
 

Weaver

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#16
If you look at the leading ruckmen from each club, allthough there are certainly some bargains, the majority of ruckmen eventually end up costing at least a top 30 pick. Doesn't much matter how good or valuable they are on the field, the price on draft day (or trade day) is very high.



Mathew Clarke (trade pick 6 and pick 21)
Rhett Biglands (pick 36)
Ben Hudson (pick 58)

Jamie Charman (zone - pick 29)
Clarke Keating (zone)
Beau McDonald (pick 73)
Dylan McLaren (PSD)
Llane Spaaderman (pick 18)

Barnaby French (trade pick 16)
Adrian DeLuca (pick 72)
Ricky Mott (pck 57)

Josh Fraser (pick 1)
Guy Richards (pick 37)
Steve McKee (trade)
Cameron Cloke (father-son)

Mathew Allan (trade - pick 57)
David Hille (pick 40)
Jason Laycock (pick 10)
Tristan Cartledge (pick 28)


Aaron Sandilands (rookie)
Justin Longmuir (pick 2)

Steven King (concession)
Brad Ottens (trade pick 14 and pick 16)
Cameron Mooney (trade - Colbert deal)
Mark Blake (father-son)

Peter Everitt (trade pick 6 and pick 22)
Robert Campbell (rookie)

Nathan Thompson (trade pick 10 and pick 26)
Corey McKernan (Teague and Morrell)
Mark Porter (trade - McKernan deal)
David Hale (pick 7)
Hamish McIntosh (pick 9)

Jeff White (pick 2 and pick 18)
Mark Jamar (rookie)
Paul Johnson (trade - pick 29)

Mathew Primus (uncontracted)
Brendan Lade (zone)
Dean Brogan (rookie)

Greg Stafford (trade for Daffy and pick 17)
Troy Simmonds (trade for Fiora)
Ray Hall (pick 79)

Trent Knobel (trade - pick 45)
Barry Brooks (trade pick 6 and pick 31)
Justin Koschitke (pick 2)

Jason Ball (trade pick 11 and pick 41)
Stephen Doyle (father-son)
Darren Jolly (trade pick 15)
Andrew Ericksen (pick 47)

Michael Gardiner (pick 1)
Dean Cox (rookie)
Mark Seaby (pick 22)
Zack Beeck (rookie)

Luke Darcy (father-son)
Peter Street (trade pick 20)
Will Minson (pick 20)
Daniel Bandy (trade pick 26)
 

Tas

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#19
The ruck is a very important position because it can give you first use of the ball, it allows you to defend in the back half better and it allows you to be more dangerous up forward from ball-ups and throw-ins.

But, a good tap ruckman who gets fewer hitouts is far superior to a ruckman that gets a ton of hitouts but the ball goes nowhere near your own players.

An example is Everett, in the games we played against the hawks he gave their midfield first use of the ball, he created goals up forward and he saved goals in defense. That is a very important position. Obviously it didn't help the haws win but they had at least a 5 odd goals head start because we lacked even a competitive ruckman.

Most teams can get by with a plodder who is competitive, you wont get as much out of them but you are less likely to get your pants pulled down around your ankles.

North invested in Thompson more as a forward I believe than as a ruckman, 2005 will more than likely be Sav's last year if he can play the whole season out. We have short-term issues with our forward and ruck and guys like McKernan and Thompson are meant to give guys like Hale and McIntosh time to develop. The McKernan thing obviously wasn't all that fantastic for us this year. There are no guarantees in football.

If we invested heavily in Ottens and he ended up just thumping the ball anywhere then it would have improved us marginally because we would have got someone who at least got his hand to the ball, but exceptional tap ruckman are hard to find.

When you see guys like Gardiner play you have to be a fool to question the value of a truely gifted top class ruckman in your side. He is both an exceptional ruckman and very dangerous when he goes forward, a guy like that can really punish a side who does not have someone who is a both a very good ruckman and good defensively.
 

Crumden

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#20
Squeak said:
If Keating played for Collingwood and not Brisbane then a couple of GF results may've been different.

Don't underestimate ruckmen.
I agree. A dominant midfield and battler in the ruck may get you into the top 4, but once you're there everyone has a good midfield. Once you get into the finals, teams without a good ruckman usually tend to be making up the numbers. Not always, but every advantage becomes critical at that time of year.
 

Fudd

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#21
Crumden said:
I agree. A dominant midfield and battler in the ruck may get you into the top 4, but once you're there everyone has a good midfield. Once you get into the finals, teams without a good ruckman usually tend to be making up the numbers. Not always, but every advantage becomes critical at that time of year.
Until Grant Thomas ups his opinion of ruckmen, i dont think the saints will win the Premiership, which is fine with me. No offense the saints supporters out there, im just not a huge fan of Grant Thomas.
 
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#22
Watch out for Earl Shaw, he's the best underage tap ruckmen in Australia without a doubt IMO. Is always improving his skills and around the ground work, seen with the amount of marks he took at nationals this year, and at Swans Ressies.

Definatly a big prospect. Keep your eyes open guys.
 
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