Perhaps his role isn’t to push fwd, stay back as part of zone and setup for opposition kicks.
Especially as we have JD and Hooksy who can ruck in fwd line as required.
I really don’t expect Leuey to be kicking goals unless we playing two rucks and he resting fwd at times, at this stage all resting on the pine.
Thought he was good yesterday but I think a fit TBC is a better, dangerous option
Playing your position is baseball? Did you ever play even under 10s footy?
Pretty standard, (although not universal), to have a one-out ruckman basically keep in the centre third, if they’re as slow as Leuey is. At any level of the game.
Different story if we were playing two legit rucks.
I want 20x goals from my rucks.
Drop a ruckman every season until one wins a brownlow tbh.
Out of curiosity I checked out his heat map and it’s pretty clear he is under the coaches instruction to play in the centre 1/3 only.
With Hooker and Joe up forward I’m not sure it would be any different if Tommy comes in. The resting of rucks in the forward pocket is pretty much dead these days.
Even when he plays forward, he’s pretty rubbish. Last year he did it at stages and even when he took a mark he usually missed the shot.
Reckon if you watched the replay you’ll see he was a key link man in many foray’s forward. Particularly important when wanting to bring the ball back through the corridor to have him there as a marking target to offload to overlap runners.
Probably would find that with Belly on weekend also that when he was still rucking in our fwd 50 that Stewart pushed out to the arc to be that tall player in the zone.
2 of Bellys goals came from quick snaps out of the ruck situation and the other came from him being actually in the fwd when Draper was in ruck IIRC
That isn’t happening with Leuey
Wouldn’t be surprised if TBC gets a game this week with Leueny getting a chop out considering the short break (I think this will happen with a number of players). We will get to see where TBC is then. I think its undeniable that TBC would be a better option resting in the forward line but what we are crying out for is a ruck that a hit up target around the ground i.e. Paddy Ryder.
For the record, I think Leueny is doing fine.
Dead concept because no sides are really playing two rucks.
Cats kinda, with Blicavs & Smith; arguably Pies but Cox doesn’t ruck (or, indeed, football) much at all.
He’s taken 5 marks for the year thus far. Not much success as a marking target.
If he is playing that role he needs to become an option when we are coming out of the backline, and defend when they are comming out of there backline. Stay a kick away and read the play. He needs to take some marks or at the very least make some contests. Belly would be better in this area.
I’d accept 15x goals a year but no less.
Is this a reverse auction? Your bids are dropping like a rock
I wanted 20x but I’ve been talked out of it.
He played a really solid game, his best for the season so far and beat Grundy. I think he needs high tackle counts and a high handball to kick ratio to be at his most effective, which he did yesterday. If he pulls up ok I would play him against the dees
But is that because of the style of play, or because of personnel? Which is a twofold thing. I’m suspicious that all the good “#2” rucks are being poached now days to be #1 rucks. Secondly, it is reasonably rare to have guys capable of rucking and playing forward. I’m not sure if there are actually too many going around who are capable of it. The ones who could are generally now seen as pure forwards (Lobb, Wright, Jenkins, Tippett etc). Certainly a few teams were going two in recent times (Hawthorn until Hale got too old, WCE, Adelaide, Sydney).
If Hooker is going to continue to come up the ground (and I’m personally happy for him to stay closer to goals), then Belly chopping out with JD into the forward line may work very well. Won’t know unless we try it, but if Belly doesn’t get a go this week I’d love him to stay forward in the VFL match and give Draper and McKernan more minutes in the ruck.
Super game. Destroyed the west toast ruck.
Best game in a while