All right guys I've worked out the hitouts situation.
Before, it was allegedly 3 points for a HOA and 1 for an ineffective HO. However, every score on the supercoach website is overstated. (eg. it says an effective kick is 4 but is really 3 and it says a goal is 8, but it's really 6). HOA were really only 2 most of the time, but 3 in high scaling.
Now, it says that an ineffective HO is 0. This is correct. It is also 0 for a HO to the opposition, as far as I can tell. Most rucks average about 20 ineffective hitouts, so that's 20 points lost there.
It also says that HOA is +5 (up from +3), however in reality it is now +3 normally (up from +2 previously), or +4 in high scaling, and only got to +5 with about 15 mins left in the Freo v Port match (It got even higher late on).
So the rucks are actually only gaining 1 point most of the time when they have a HOA, compared to last year! Most have less than 10 HOA per game, so they're not even gaining 10 points there.
So overall they're losing over 10 PPG.
Does this mean you shouldn't pick the expensive rucks? No, because the cheap rucks will drop by 10 too! Berger just had a great game.
Basically, to break even with last year's average (assuming no improvement in other areas), they actually have to average 50 % HOA, a stat which no one will be able to achieve.
Overall, I think we can expect about 100 max from the likes of Jacobs, Mummy, Sandi and Goldy.
Hope this clear's things up!
