Not sure J Madden and Salmon ever played together but your point still stands. It was a great era.
The greatest of all Bernie Jones. How could you forget him? That classic moment of him gathering the ball in the goal square at Moorabbin and nonchalantly swinging his leg around, missing the ball and kicking the goalpost will live forever in my memory.
Decent ruckmen don’t grow on trees and you only can develop 1 at a time effectively, needing at least 2 ready to go and they might only have a couple of good years if you get a good one.
When we had Ryder and Bellchambers we couldn’t even keep Jenkins on our list, let alone attract Ruck talent. Now we have a genuine developing ruck, two decent mature ruckmen and backups in Smack and Joe, which is pretty optimal.
After emerging from losing Ryder and a difficult drafting period and losing Luenberger, we have done as well as we can. Thurlow, Giles and Nyoun were all misses. But you need to fish for a good catch and most teams don’t want to invest too much in growing their own rucks given it is a hit and miss undertaking.
Getting the rucks right is probably one of the hardest recruiting and coaching challenges, and in reality we have been one of the best at it, going back to my earliest footy memories of Graham Moss.
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Another injured tasweigen ruckman to (y)our rescue, AND YOU WILL LOVE IT.
l think you mean Percy Jones.
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There’s a reason he didn’t get picked up in the national draft.
In classic Essendon fashion: “he had that one good season though”
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He’s definitely good enough, but everyone in launceston new he was a massive pss head and wasn’t surprised he was overlooked.
Put it this way - he was behaving like an AFL footballer before he was one.
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He’s a good ‘break in the event of fire’ pickup.
As was Clarke.
Hopefully Draper develops and we don’t need to use him.
Some here are saying Phillips could challenge Belly for the number one ruck. Just think about what that statement means.
To me, it shows how bad our ruck stocks are. A player we got for virtually nothing and only played when Kruezer was injured, is challenging our first ruckman.
We should have gone for Pittonet a lot harder rather than rest our hopes on Draper returning from injury and hoping he develops into what we think he’ll be and use ‘stop gaps’ in the meantime.
What’s done is done, but I hope we don’t look back at this in a years time with an aging Belly, Phillips as a better backup than Clarke (that is a positive I guess) and Draper struggling after returning from injury.
In that time, I think Pittonet will be playing whenever Kruezer is injured and overtaken him by the end of the season. We’ll probably then trade for Kruezer as Belly retires still hoping that Draper eventually comes good.
Best of luck to Phillips. Hope this turns out well.
Phillips appears to be a far more competent ruck than Pittonet
Kreuzer when fit is one of the best rucks in the league. No shame being his number 2.
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I don’t have to think about it for very long.
Bellchambers is very very average. That is what everyone who says Phillips could challenge him are saying.
People keep banging on about us needing a big bodied mid. A defect ruckman is a far far bigger need for us at the moment. Hopefully Phillips does prove to be better than TBell.
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People say Clarke was a good break in case of emergency player but really, he wasn’t. He had one good game against Goldstein and the rest were rubbish. If you’re getting bent over every week then you’re 100% not a good backup option.
Phillips on the other hand will be a perfect backup option with the potential to do better. He’s what I wished we had at the start of the year.
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Yep. It does.
In an ideal world you have a Gawn/Grundy, a 2nd ruck with some forward craft who can play as the number 1 if required. A mature backup in the Phillips mold, and a young developing type with the potential to be the #1, or at worst the #2.
don’t we already have one of those
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Pittonet is an absolute superstar… on here
He’s been at the Hawks 5 years, for 7 games, 7 disposals, 0.9 marks & 19 hitouts a game.
3rd in line behind Ceglar and McEvoy - who’s the same age as Bellcho, and looking just as tired.
Hype on here is outrageous.
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In an ideal world?
In an ideal world surely you’d have 4 absolute superstars, all in their peak years.
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Oh and they’d all be on rookie wages, and happy to stay on rookie wages.
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Most lid on post l have read in many a long day.
Are you feeling okay?
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Yeah but he played at the Hawks which gives him super powers channelling Clarko magic
Phillips has only come from Fark Carlton
Can’t believe we didn’t get Pittonet
Fark this club. Sack Dodoro.
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A ruckman…
Whose played a handful of games in his first five years.
Who would ever have thunk that he’d be developing behind other ruckman in that time…
This time last year, Marshall was 22 years old (same age as Pittonet) fourth in line behind Longer, Pierce and Hickey. Now he’s one of the top handful of rucks in the league.
Pittonet was the best developing ruckman available this trade period. Yet we end up chasing Ryder and getting Phillips.
Pittonet to us was worth the gamble as he could develop further into a starting ruck. Phillips is a stop gap until Draper has developed.
I’d prefer Pittonet at the value of pick 54 than Phillips for nothing.
But let’s hope we’ve made the right decision here.