Position 2023: Ruck Discussion

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Need to kick goals to win games, they have to have a presence in the forwards.

You can always win the ball off the opposing ruckman (e.g. Shaun Grigg as a Ruck).

Rucks don't win games forwards do.
Yeah but Rowan is better as a ruck than as a forward, and his strength is getting around the ground. Either way, it's a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and if there's going to be a structural hole somewhere, might as well play him where he's better.
 
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Who rucks when Marshall goes 40% forward?

Tom Campbell? No chance he’s getting a game unless Marshall is injured.

Ryder retired end of last season. Marshall will only get more ruck time and is a great selection at 500k.
Think Max Heath will get some games attended quite a few centre bounces before he went off the ground, still raw but looked more ready than he did last year.
 
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I think they will want Marshall in the ruck as much as they can. Next preseason game would be no surprise to see Battle in the forward line. They may try a strategy of just getting a contest in the forward marking duel and get the ball to the ground and play the small forward pressure game. If I recall WB used this tactic a few seasons ago when they had no talls up front. Lying has had plenty of experience coaching with a non existent forward line from his Dockers days.

And has he brought the same conditioning staff with him to St K from his Docker days? Freo had a horrific run of injuries while he was there. Not his fault but he seems to have brought the bad juju with him to St K.
 
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I think they will want Marshall in the ruck as much as they can. Next preseason game would be no surprise to see Battle in the forward line. They may try a strategy of just getting a contest in the forward marking duel and get the ball to the ground and play the small forward pressure game. If I recall WB used this tactic a few seasons ago when they had no talls up front. Lying has had plenty of experience coaching with a non existent forward line from his Dockers days.

And has he brought the same conditioning staff with him to St K from his Docker days? Freo had a horrific run of injuries while he was there. Not his fault but he seems to have brought the bad juju with him to St K.
It does seem like we've copped some kind of curse this pre-season!
Yeah agree about Marshall mostly rucking, can't see him in the fwd line much, it'll put too much pressure on the backline if the opposition are winning all the clearances. They tried Cordy and Howard fwd in the last one, could be Battle, could also see how the young guns go, Caminiti, Phillipou, Sharman, Owens could all be fwd, with the smaller crumbers buzzing around.
I don't see the Saints winning many games early on.
 
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Caminiti showed promise I understand in the game the other day but there we multiple reports of him cramping up after 30 or 40 min indicating that he does not yet have an AFL tank. But what he did do was quite good.
Needs to add size and build a tank, think hell be a player in time but not this year.

To be expected from a guy that really hasnt played much top level footy at all
 
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Maybe we're going round and round a bit much on the rucks. We've got a guy who scored 160 and 192 in a genuine ruck-share role last season and is only owned by 4% of coaches (that's a bit staggering right?).

If Sav doesn't get somewhere near 70 with the E on Friday night in Round 1 (assuming he's picked), then I reckon the pivot is on to the premium ruck Super POD, Max Gawn 🤩
 
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Maybe we're going round and round a bit much on the rucks. We've got a guy who scored 160 and 192 in a genuine ruck-share role last season and is only owned by 4% of coaches (that's a bit staggering right?).

If Sav doesn't get somewhere near 70 with the E on Friday night in Round 1 (assuming he's picked), then I reckon the pivot is on to the premium ruck Super POD, Max Gawn 🤩
Problem is that Jackson is way more of a forward than Grundy is. Hard not to see Gawn’s ruck time having to drop.

Just think it’s a risk compared to say Darcy who has done it with a forward/ruck already (Lobb) and a rising younger team of midfielders around him.

Can’t see Jackson taking any more ruck time away from Darcy that Lobb did. Darcy also perfect age to continue on into the 110+ territory.
 
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33 pages of ruck chat (to be fair only read the last 10) and I’m still no clearer on which ruck, including R3.

Ruck for only three positions always seems hard.

Between Marshall, English, Darcy and now a little of Gawn thrown in. Donut or Rat for R3
McAndrew will play due to Hickey injury - 123k r/f
 
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Darcy had 70% of CBA Rucking duties was it? (sorry dont have the stats in front of me!) In the praccy game with Jackson playing as a mostly forward?
As @Leroy said above the template has been die-cut from last year at Melb. While he is, I think referring to Gawn I reckon we look the other side of Oz from Gawn/Jackson and change that to Darcy/Jackson this year, is this just a carbon copy and we should just lock in Darcy?
I think Gawn doesn't play as many ruck minutes with Grundy in the team as he did with Jackson.

Noted all have their issues, Darcy exploded in 2021 then regressed a little last year. Which way will he go this year?

While id like to see (or in my case read comments here to get some insight to how they go) the next Freo praccy game will tell us a lot, hopefully and I’d reckon im going to find the money to go from Grundy to Darcy and keep Marshall at R2.
 
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My concern is the rucking duties % split will change for Darcy/Jackson on a weekly basis in line with the opposition and tactics.

Darcy is a bit of a yo-yo scorer at the best of times, and I can’t help but feel he will be a very frustrating ride from a SC point of view.

Fwiw, he’s in my team at the moment but I don’t love it.
 
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My concern is the rucking duties % split will change for Darcy/Jackson on a weekly basis in line with the opposition and tactics.

Darcy is a bit of a yo-yo scorer at the best of times, and I can’t help but feel he will be a very frustrating ride from a SC point of view.

Fwiw, he’s in my team at the moment but I don’t love it.
He looked excellent albeit against ROB who is a decent match up for him. You're right, the concern is if they use Jackson more against more athletic types of opposition rucks.
 
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My concern is the rucking duties % split will change for Darcy/Jackson on a weekly basis in line with the opposition and tactics.

Darcy is a bit of a yo-yo scorer at the best of times, and I can’t help but feel he will be a very frustrating ride from a SC point of view.

Fwiw, he’s in my team at the moment but I don’t love it.
It is a possibly that Jackson rucks more against jumping opponents, Darcy hardly leaves the ground and relies on his strength. But Darcys not really a forward so where do they put him. Think it will be similar as this weekend game.

Is Darcy a sub risk late in the game against jumping rucks to get some more run, Grundy the same I guess. Are teams with two good rucks a risk of subbing?
 
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Why would they take out their only viable ruck though?
Because he's not their only viable ruck. He's arguably not even a better ruck than Campbell and Heath is also pretty ready for AFL games and both are pure rucks.

Marshall is much better than either around the ground but he's also a hell of a lot better as a forward and they were using Mitch Owens as a KPF and it flat out wasn't working.

Basically Marshall forward does make a lot of sense, I don't think he will, Lyons has always valued the ruck (albeit the actual ruck not around the ground skills) and I think Marshall wants to play ruck and keeping one of your only elite talents happy is important.

I don't think anyone is really fading him, he's a mediocre pick in a field of bad picks, there's definitely very good and valid cases to not take him just as there are some good cases to take him. If people value durability, he ranks very poorly, proven scoring history he's also weak, job security he's in the middle. Different coaches focus on different priorities. Marshall only made the first draft of mine last weekend for example because he fails badly on durability which given I don't want to use trades on the rucks is a genuine issue.

I'd be more worried by anyone who has locked any ruck in at this point than someone who isn't sure, if you've locked any of these rucks I'd question your selection criteria and what is missing from it that you are at that spot because I can't see anything resembling locks. Dunkley is the only absolute lock I see right now, Yeo is if he stays fit. I'd say right now everyone else should still be on the probable list.
 
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It is a possibly that Jackson rucks more against jumping opponents, Darcy hardly leaves the ground and relies on his strength. But Darcys not really a forward so where do they put him. Think it will be similar as this weekend game.

Is Darcy a sub risk late in the game against jumping rucks to get some more run, Grundy the same I guess. Are teams with two good rucks a risk of subbing?
Wouldn’t be worried about Darcy being subbed off. Man is a tank and will be 90-95% game time.

He’s not that different to Gawn apart from the goals. Can take a contested grab and works around the ground strongly.

Don’t see it as too much different as what Gawn/Jackson split was.

Darcy can play the same role Gawn did with neither being a FF. Can just go behind the ball or provide at least a big body in the forward line for a rest.

They’ll need Jackson down forward.

I think the disadvantage of Darcy forward is a bigger one than a small advantage Jackson would have over Darcy at times in the ruck against someone athletic.

Darcy is a tap ruckman who hasn’t had any issues with athletic ruckman in the past. It’s more just been his ability to get disposals at times and be quiet here or there at times.

But again we have the info already there of how Gawn/Jackson worked and Darcy having an even more prominent/established ruck version of a forward/ruck in Lobb behind his backup.

Neither situation really drastically affected the R1 in those scenarios.
 
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