Position 2023: Ruck Discussion
- Thread starter KLo30
- Start date
This.
Most people misinterpret this situation.
R: Darcy, Marshall // N Madden (donut)
F: Cameron // 50 Rookie, 45 Rookie
When Darcy gets injured, and you shift Cameron up, it becomes:
R: Marshall, Cameron // Darcy
F: Rookie 50* // Rookie 45, N Madden donut)
It's not Cameron replacing Darcy in this situation, it's Cameron facilitating Rookie 50 replacing Darcy's donut. If you're lucky, you can loop Rookie 50 and Rookie 45, through Madden.
So many people think they have dodged a "larger" donut, because Cameron has replaced Darcy, but in your list of 22 scoring players, it is Rookie 50 that has replaced Darcy, not Cameron. Cameron was just the facilitator, to save you from trading Darcy out.
Most people misinterpret this situation.
R: Darcy, Marshall // N Madden (donut)
F: Cameron // 50 Rookie, 45 Rookie
When Darcy gets injured, and you shift Cameron up, it becomes:
R: Marshall, Cameron // Darcy
F: Rookie 50* // Rookie 45, N Madden donut)
It's not Cameron replacing Darcy in this situation, it's Cameron facilitating Rookie 50 replacing Darcy's donut. If you're lucky, you can loop Rookie 50 and Rookie 45, through Madden.
So many people think they have dodged a "larger" donut, because Cameron has replaced Darcy, but in your list of 22 scoring players, it is Rookie 50 that has replaced Darcy, not Cameron. Cameron was just the facilitator, to save you from trading Darcy out.
He did but they didn't have a big influence on his scoring, some of his best scores were against the elite and some of his worst against the scrubs. The real correlation was when the team was competitive and winning some games he was really good and later in the season he faded out really badly with the side. There's chicken and egg going on there in that him fading was part of why the team fell apart but also that the team falling compounded his decline.
I think he's the easy "safest" pick, which is kind of scary because he's not a safe pick at all coming off a random spike year in his career but he's by far the best bet to play 22 in the top 10 options (outside Goldy), has shown he can score at a high level and has no threat to his job, if anything he's got an excellent handcuff option as well in that regard. Meanwhile the other guys are all broken durability wrecks or have serious job challenges or have never even hit premium numbers.
On Witts he's got a pretty phenomenal start to the season this year also, Sydney, Essendon, Geelong and Saints are 4 of the weakest ruck groups (albeit Marshall is great around the ground). It gets a lot harder the next month though before he gets another dream run through the byes. I think he's one that could definitely be targeted after he goes through the Freo/North/Richmond/Melbourne/Eagles gauntlet through the byes (with his non-bye being a huge advantage also).
The biggest problem with the rucks is that failed picks hurt so much more than anywhere else because you have to use trades. Even more so this year if it's an injury where coverage is looking very unlikely.
I do think there's a very definite case for the Witts/Moyle handcuff where at least 50% of your ruck lineup is well covered (albeit it's the durable one...).
If you've got decent DPP setup you should be covering with your best bench rookie and loopholes so you would hope to beat 50 in general but you're spot on still that people overrate the cover they get.
Still, that 50 is 50 more than those without the cover get. Get it a couple of times in a season which you would have on all the top 5 rucks but Witts last year as a minimum and that's a big ranking difference at season's end.
I think he's the easy "safest" pick, which is kind of scary because he's not a safe pick at all coming off a random spike year in his career but he's by far the best bet to play 22 in the top 10 options (outside Goldy), has shown he can score at a high level and has no threat to his job, if anything he's got an excellent handcuff option as well in that regard. Meanwhile the other guys are all broken durability wrecks or have serious job challenges or have never even hit premium numbers.
On Witts he's got a pretty phenomenal start to the season this year also, Sydney, Essendon, Geelong and Saints are 4 of the weakest ruck groups (albeit Marshall is great around the ground). It gets a lot harder the next month though before he gets another dream run through the byes. I think he's one that could definitely be targeted after he goes through the Freo/North/Richmond/Melbourne/Eagles gauntlet through the byes (with his non-bye being a huge advantage also).
The biggest problem with the rucks is that failed picks hurt so much more than anywhere else because you have to use trades. Even more so this year if it's an injury where coverage is looking very unlikely.
I do think there's a very definite case for the Witts/Moyle handcuff where at least 50% of your ruck lineup is well covered (albeit it's the durable one...).
If you've got decent DPP setup you should be covering with your best bench rookie and loopholes so you would hope to beat 50 in general but you're spot on still that people overrate the cover they get.
Still, that 50 is 50 more than those without the cover get. Get it a couple of times in a season which you would have on all the top 5 rucks but Witts last year as a minimum and that's a big ranking difference at season's end.
He did but they didn't have a big influence on his scoring, some of his best scores were against the elite and some of his worst against the scrubs. The real correlation was when the team was competitive and winning some games he was really good and later in the season he faded out really badly with the side. There's chicken and egg going on there in that him fading was part of why the team fell apart but also that the team falling compounded his decline.
I think he's the easy "safest" pick, which is kind of scary because he's not a safe pick at all coming off a random spike year in his career but he's by far the best bet to play 22 in the top 10 options (outside Goldy), has shown he can score at a high level and has no threat to his job, if anything he's got an excellent handcuff option as well in that regard. Meanwhile the other guys are all broken durability wrecks or have serious job challenges or have never even hit premium numbers.
On Witts he's got a pretty phenomenal start to the season this year also, Sydney, Essendon, Geelong and Saints are 4 of the weakest ruck groups (albeit Marshall is great around the ground). It gets a lot harder the next month though before he gets another dream run through the byes. I think he's one that could definitely be targeted after he goes through the Freo/North/Richmond/Melbourne/Eagles gauntlet through the byes (with his non-bye being a huge advantage also).
The biggest problem with the rucks is that failed picks hurt so much more than anywhere else because you have to use trades. Even more so this year if it's an injury where coverage is looking very unlikely.
I do think there's a very definite case for the Witts/Moyle handcuff where at least 50% of your ruck lineup is well covered (albeit it's the durable one...).
If you've got decent DPP setup you should be covering with your best bench rookie and loopholes so you would hope to beat 50 in general but you're spot on still that people overrate the cover they get.
Still, that 50 is 50 more than those without the cover get. Get it a couple of times in a season which you would have on all the top 5 rucks but Witts last year as a minimum and that's a big ranking difference at season's end.
I think he's the easy "safest" pick, which is kind of scary because he's not a safe pick at all coming off a random spike year in his career but he's by far the best bet to play 22 in the top 10 options (outside Goldy), has shown he can score at a high level and has no threat to his job, if anything he's got an excellent handcuff option as well in that regard. Meanwhile the other guys are all broken durability wrecks or have serious job challenges or have never even hit premium numbers.
On Witts he's got a pretty phenomenal start to the season this year also, Sydney, Essendon, Geelong and Saints are 4 of the weakest ruck groups (albeit Marshall is great around the ground). It gets a lot harder the next month though before he gets another dream run through the byes. I think he's one that could definitely be targeted after he goes through the Freo/North/Richmond/Melbourne/Eagles gauntlet through the byes (with his non-bye being a huge advantage also).
The biggest problem with the rucks is that failed picks hurt so much more than anywhere else because you have to use trades. Even more so this year if it's an injury where coverage is looking very unlikely.
I do think there's a very definite case for the Witts/Moyle handcuff where at least 50% of your ruck lineup is well covered (albeit it's the durable one...).
If you've got decent DPP setup you should be covering with your best bench rookie and loopholes so you would hope to beat 50 in general but you're spot on still that people overrate the cover they get.
Still, that 50 is 50 more than those without the cover get. Get it a couple of times in a season which you would have on all the top 5 rucks but Witts last year as a minimum and that's a big ranking difference at season's end.
Been pondering Witts. The issues being spike year last season, is there any upside or can he even just maintain something close to last season.
The waters seem to be made murkier for mine because 2021 was a wipeout for Witts and then before that we have the shortened 2020 season which could give misleading stats. That makes some recent data by season on season hard to assess.
Nevertheless I was curious about the sudden improvement from Witts. In 2022 he was number 1 for basic hit outs (not HOA) and in 2020 he was number 4 with Gawn, Grundy and NicNat above him. So for raw hit outs he was no slouch.
What did pop up though was clearance players. In 2022 GC had 3 players in the top 15 for ave stoppage clearances per game, more than any other club. Even Witts himself turned up at number 25. Miller was 2, Rowell 12 and Anderson 14. In 2020 they had one player in the top 15 by ave and two in the top 25.
While there was also some improvement in centre clearances from 2020 to 2022 it was not as sharp as stoppages. So for mine the query now becomes this. Witts did so much not wake up one morning sometime between his last game in 2021 and his first game in 2022 and have a lightbulb moment on how to play ruck. Instead, is it a function of the GC onballers now starting to improve and turn those raw hit outs into clearance conversions (especially stoppages) which equals solid SC points for Witts.
Given that the same three, Touk, Rowell and Anderson will be buttering up again and probably the latter two will still have natural improvement, will it be rinse and repeat this season? And that lends itself perhaps to Witts being able to maintain something close to his SC ave of last season.
The waters seem to be made murkier for mine because 2021 was a wipeout for Witts and then before that we have the shortened 2020 season which could give misleading stats. That makes some recent data by season on season hard to assess.
Nevertheless I was curious about the sudden improvement from Witts. In 2022 he was number 1 for basic hit outs (not HOA) and in 2020 he was number 4 with Gawn, Grundy and NicNat above him. So for raw hit outs he was no slouch.
What did pop up though was clearance players. In 2022 GC had 3 players in the top 15 for ave stoppage clearances per game, more than any other club. Even Witts himself turned up at number 25. Miller was 2, Rowell 12 and Anderson 14. In 2020 they had one player in the top 15 by ave and two in the top 25.
While there was also some improvement in centre clearances from 2020 to 2022 it was not as sharp as stoppages. So for mine the query now becomes this. Witts did so much not wake up one morning sometime between his last game in 2021 and his first game in 2022 and have a lightbulb moment on how to play ruck. Instead, is it a function of the GC onballers now starting to improve and turn those raw hit outs into clearance conversions (especially stoppages) which equals solid SC points for Witts.
Given that the same three, Touk, Rowell and Anderson will be buttering up again and probably the latter two will still have natural improvement, will it be rinse and repeat this season? And that lends itself perhaps to Witts being able to maintain something close to his SC ave of last season.
