Analysis Rucks, do they matter and does ours suck?

[StonesThrow]

No.

He's okay when in form.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

He'd be in our top 3 highest paid for sure.

Not sure about that.

Sloane
Laird
Dawson
Walker

But he is being paid as it he is a top ruckman rather than an average one.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Stating the obvious, A good ruckman will make the side better

Shaun Rehn easily was our best.

 

[cleanhands]

Shaun Rehn easily was our best.

Neil Button was ours, made a big difference

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Neil Button was ours, made a bid difference

Peter Carey at the Bay.

Intelligent ruckmen are worth their weight in gold.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Ps. I'm referring to footy smarts as opposed to a high IQ... as ROB may have high intelligence, but average footy IQ.

 

[rabidcrow]

If you go over Rob's stats, it's "not great, not terrible".

I would just prefer a more mobile ruck. I dislike the archetypal lumbering ruck who can win a ruck contest but can't run or kick. I want that type of player to be phased out.

I think the view of ROB is definitely impacted by his uncoordinated movement. He is not a mobile, agile athlete. He just lumbers around from contest to contest doing his thing


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[rabidcrow]

Simple really .....if "good" rucks weren't valued, MELB wouldn't have chased Grundy ....and FREO wouldn't have chased Luke Jackson

Nor would West Coast attempted to get Jackson .....GEEL wouldn't be trading for rucks every year to get a good one

Good RUCKS are hard to find though ......we should have chased Meek !

And yet in the HTA stat that finally sparked this thread both Cats ruckman ranked below ROB

Obviously you want the best player in every position and if we had Gawn we would all be much happier. If we had a Draper, Hickey, Stanley we would be complaining about some aspect of their game as well


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[George Kramer]

Neil Button was ours, made a big difference

Brilliant player

 

[George Kramer]

And yet in the HTA stat that finally sparked this thread both Cats ruckman ranked below ROB

Obviously you want the best player in every position and if we had Gawn we would all be much happier. If we had a Draper, Hickey, Stanley we would be complaining about some aspect of their game as well


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“Both” ruckman. But Geelongs rucks aren’t your traditional rucks and are very mobile, if ours isn’t winning the taps to advantage by a fair margin he’s next to useless

 

[cleanhands]

Brilliant player

Google Neil the bear button footy almanac worth a good read you’ll enjoy it

 

[Mutineer]

Neil Button was ours, made a big difference

Bill Wedding!

 

[Bearded Clam]

Look at the past six or so premiers..

Tigers took out three with an average ruck in Nank

West coast won without their main ruck, one of the comps best, due to him being out with a knee recon.

Melbourne.. Gawn yeah, ok, pay that.

Geelong last year?.. nope, cant say they had some outstanding ruckman..

So only one premier over that period actually had a ruckman you’d class as one of the guns of the comp..

What all these premiers did have though is absolute guns in their midfield..

We’ve got neither at the moment.. a bog average ruckman and a bog average midfield.

Lets hope some of our promising young mids get more opportunity and can step up this year..

What shits me is that ROB gets given game after game regardless of form.. and strawnie is a better (only just marginally tbh) tap ruckman, is a great mark, can actually kick well both for goal and field kicking to team mates and is just as fit as ROB..

Strawnie shouldve been given far more opportunities over the past two years given ROB’s form over this period..

The cynic in me would speculate that this is due the club giving ROB a juicy contract on the back of his 2020 year and to drop him for too many games would mean having to admit/accept they, once again, blew their load too early and fxxked up their player contracting and salary cap management…

 

[George Kramer]

Look at the past six or so premiers..

Tigers took out three with an average ruck in Nank

West coast won without their main ruck, one of the comps best, due to him being out with a knee recon.

Melbourne.. Gawn yeah, ok, pay that.

Geelong last year?.. nope, cant say they had some outstanding ruckman..

So only one premier over that period actually had a ruckman you’d class as one of the guns of the comp..

What all these premiers did have though is absolute guns in their midfield..

We’ve got neither at the moment.. a bog average ruckman and a bog average midfield.

Lets hope some of our promising young mids get more opportunity and can step up this year..

What shits me is that ROB gets given game after game regardless of form.. and strawnie is a better (only just marginally tbh) tap ruckman, is a great mark, can actually kick well both for goal and field kicking to team mates and is just as fit as ROB..

Strawnie shouldve been given far more opportunities over the past two years given ROB’s form over this period..

The cynic in me would speculate that this is due the club giving ROB a juicy contract on the back of his 2020 year and to drop him for too many games would mean having to admit/accept they, once again, blew their load too early and fxxked up their player contracting and salary cap management…

Nankervis is a lot better than average and has been important to Richmond’s success.

West Coast still had Lycett who was decent that year. Collingwood had Grundy, do the Pies make the GF without him? They were a kick away from winning the flag, was that Grundys fault they didn’t?

Geelong didn’t play traditional ruckman but the role they played was very important. I’m Sydney had a dominant ruckman could they have been more competitive?

No one is saying the ruck needs to be a lumbering ruck of the old days, they can be a mobile ruck. Ultimately to win a flag you need quality players across the team, ruck is no different.

 

[baldandbroke]

Must be competent at ruck contests … so the other ruck can’t just feed his mids - but very good at something else.

When ROB was at his best he was not easy to beat in the tap … competed well on the ground at the contest … and a beast in the air with contested marking.

I have not seen that Rob for a little while.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Must be competent at ruck contests … so the other ruck can’t just feed his mids - but very good at something else.

When ROB was at his best he was not easy to beat in the tap … competed well on the ground at the contest … and a beast in the air with contested marking.

I have not seen that Rob for a little while.

That's the key for me too.

If ROB isn't marking the ball, we may as well play someone else who gives us more around the ground.

 

[Dudersaurus]

I think Blighty was on the money. He likened a good ruck to having a great first serve in tennis. Helps a lot, but there are plenty of ways to return serve.

 

[George Kramer]

Let’s say your ruckman isn’t competitive and is coming up against a good ruckman who has a big game. You’re only the playing the one ruck though with back up from a tall forward, so you’re pretty much stuck the game losing in the ruck, that’s in the clearances and around the ground.

Let’s say one of your midfielders are down and the oppositions are having a big game. You’ve got other mids in your team to help pick up the slack or you can try a different mid, make some positional changes, tag even.

Let’s say one of your key forwards is being soundly beaten but the rest of the forwards are doing well. Plus you might try a smaller forward line, or switch a defender.

Which player being down has the most negative impact on the teams chances of winning and with the least options to cover being badly beaten?

 

[Scorpus]

Here's my requirements for a ruck

- No point having a ruck as one of your highest paid players. Spending $700k on one vs $400k is $300k you could be using to grab an elite mid, say upgrading a $500k mid into an $800k mid.

- You can't have a ruck so bad they lose the ruck contest decisively. Can't let the opposition spike the ball forward 25m every time. So if they can't win the ruck they must have some sort of negating ability

- You can't set up your midfield for a winning ruck but then actually have a negating or losing ruck. We've been guilty of this, expecting a winning ruck when we have a guy that only equals the contest at best.

- Your ruck can't be a liability everywhere on the ground. It's okay not being that good around the ground, but you still need to have passable skills and be able to occasionally take a mark. Being able to drop behind the ball or up forward is a bonus.

O'Brien sucks because he's overpaid but is average. We set up expecting him to win it but he isn't that good. He also has below average skills and (at the moment) is a liability around the ground. Can't play anywhere else.

We need him to either win more ruck contests or negate the opposition more. We also need him to at least be able to take a mark and kick at AFL standard. And if he can do all that to reach the level of a reasonable ruck, we need to make sure he's not in our top paid players

 

[George Kramer]

I think Blighty was on the money. He likened a good ruck to having a great first serve in tennis. Helps a lot, but there are plenty of ways to return serve.

Blighty had quality rucks at his disposal and played more than one.

 

[George Kramer]

Here's my requirements for a ruck

- No point having a ruck as one of your highest paid players. Spending $700k on one vs $400k is $300k you could be using to grab an elite mid, say upgrading a $500k mid into an $800k mid.

- You can't have a ruck so bad they lose the ruck contest decisively. Can't let the opposition spike the ball forward 25m every time. So if they can't win the ruck they must have some sort of negating ability

- You can't set up your midfield for a winning ruck but then actually have a negating or losing ruck. We've been guilty of this, expecting a winning ruck when we have a guy that only equals the contest at best.

- Your ruck can't be a liability everywhere on the ground. It's okay not being that good around the ground, but you still need to have passable skills and be able to occasionally take a mark. Being able to drop behind the ball or up forward is a bonus.

O'Brien sucks because he's overpaid but is average. We set up expecting him to win it but he isn't that good. He also has below average skills and (at the moment) is a liability around the ground. Can't play anywhere else.

We need him to either win more ruck contests or negate the opposition more. We also need him to at least be able to take a mark and kick at AFL standard. And if he can do all that to reach the level of a reasonable ruck, we need to make sure he's not in our top paid players

When your ruck sucks and is out of form and is carried, what message does that send to the rest of the team? You need some depth so the bloke has the same risk of being dropped as everyone else

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Blighty had quality rucks at his disposal and played more than one.

Often played 3!

 

[George Kramer]

When Jacobs form was waning and we had a young guy in ROB who was playing well, we wanted Jacob out and ROB in, why?

 

[cleanhands]

Often played 3!

It’s certainly easier to set up to a winning ruckman than trying to set to defend

 

[Mutineer]

Here's my requirements for a ruck

- No point having a ruck as one of your highest paid players. Spending $700k on one vs $400k is $300k you could be using to grab an elite mid, say upgrading a $500k mid into an $800k mid.

- You can't have a ruck so bad they lose the ruck contest decisively. Can't let the opposition spike the ball forward 25m every time. So if they can't win the ruck they must have some sort of negating ability

- You can't set up your midfield for a winning ruck but then actually have a negating or losing ruck. We've been guilty of this, expecting a winning ruck when we have a guy that only equals the contest at best.

- Your ruck can't be a liability everywhere on the ground. It's okay not being that good around the ground, but you still need to have passable skills and be able to occasionally take a mark. Being able to drop behind the ball or up forward is a bonus.

O'Brien sucks because he's overpaid but is average. We set up expecting him to win it but he isn't that good. He also has below average skills and (at the moment) is a liability around the ground. Can't play anywhere else.

We need him to either win more ruck contests or negate the opposition more. We also need him to at least be able to take a mark and kick at AFL standard. And if he can do all that to reach the level of a reasonable ruck, we need to make sure he's not in our top paid players

Yet he takes more marks and certainly more contested marks than a fair percentage of current AFL ruckmen even in season 2022 when he was below his best output..