If we had just one primary, experienced ruck in the 23 to 28yo age bracket (two even better) then I would have been happy with an average or young developing third. But we don’t, and we’re different to most teams in that regard.
But, as I’ve said, I also get why the emphasis was on other areas with regards to our recruitment… just think it was a risk.
We do have a lot of ruck options on the list with AFL experience / capability.
In order of preference:
Bellchambers - injured
Draper - injured
McKernan - required forward
Clarke - meh
Daniher - prefer forward, but injured
Stewart - injured
Break glass:
Stringer - injured
Hooker - required back
Hartley - maybe???
Tom Jok was an Adam Goodes style of utility when at Collingwood, playing everywhere from ruck to HBF
Nathan Lovett-Murray? Proven finals ruckman…
Stewart is tall, but not a ruck: He’s played 45 games, for 40 hitouts.
He’s in the “break-glass-during-a-game” category.
Yep. I think we would have been throwing some decent vfl ruck minutes at him recently if he was fit. But agree. Not an option you would willingly use.
Who cares what age they are if they’re good enough? People such as myself wanted Draper in the side instead of Belly, that’s how good he was playing, but because he’s not 23 he’s not depth?
This is just terrible reasoning. It lacks logic.
I would also point out that saying you want 2 MORE rucks in the 23-28 age bracket on our list, indicates you have no idea on list balance. The idea we should have 5 pure rucks on the list in case our #1 (Belly) and #2 (Draper) go down is stupid.
Ok, I’ll bite… I’ve got time to kill this morning.
To your earlier rant…
Whether or not his uncles or dad had it is irrelevant.
The definition of ‘family history’ in relation to medical conditions, is defined as any history of one other person in the immediate family (e.g. Joe’s brother), having the same medical condition.
This is the trigger for insurance companies and medical professionals to assume a condition is hereditary and to take necessary action. You disregard what the medical industry considers evidence of condition. My post was entirely correct and appropriate… there is family history of OP with Joe. You seem remarkably uneducated on the topic - so get educated or don’t comment.
I said I didn’t see Francis as a KPP tall. … very like you to deliberately misquote. From Twomey’s draft guide (below) - seems he has the same ‘skewed’ opinion as me:
"At 191cm he fits in nicely as a third tall defender, but despite his leap and jumping, Francis doesn’t carry the height to play on the bigger key forwards. He matched up against Josh Schache at stages late in the carnival and had trouble containing the 199cm prospect.’ '…at his size he is unlikely to become a true tall backman capable of stopping big, powerful forwards. "
It’s a widely held view that Francis is a better third intercepting tall and not a KPP. You can have a different opinion, that’s ok. But you are naive if you think many respected commentators don’t have the same view as me.
This whole sentence is utter rubbish… ‘by default’. I’ve repeatedly spoken about trading for talls. You are flailing away with lies in an effort to try and construct a misleading argument. Quite pathetic but true to form.
Wow, he deserved a spot ahead of Belly coz you and ‘people’ said so. Draper, who has never played a senior game, should have been played ahead of Belly because you wanted him to. That’s an opinion you numpty, not an argument. No statistics or evidence to show he was performing better, just ‘I want him in instead of Belly’. Point to stats for both, put together a rationale…provide something.
Where did I say this? Oh that’s right, I didn’t say it. I never said he shouldnt be depth or anything remotely like that. He has potential to be a great ruckman. You are just gaslighting… and a weird, easy to debunk attempt at that.
Yeah, it would be terrible reasoning, if I’d said it.
Oh jesus, didn’t say that either, did I? You are consistent with your rubbish, I’ll give you that…
FYI, I said…
Where did you get the idea I want two MORE rucks on top of our current complement? Is Clarke on a lifetime contract and can’t be let go? I would like a min of one 23-28yo as a member of our CURRENT ruck complement… capisce? Clarke out with a replacement in that bracket traded in next year… another 23-28 brought in when Belly retires. Good long term cover for Draper to develop. And it’s a common age for good rucks in the top teams, (see below), so it’s an entirely reasonable suggestion.
I’ll give you an example, because clearly you find the concept challenging to understand. Melb have Gawn 27, Preuss 24, Bradtke 19 (rookie)… two rucks in the peak age group on their primary list, one on the rookie - THREE in total. If we had picked up Preuss, who went cheap last year, instead of Clarke, we would have Belly 30, Preuss 24, Draper 20 (rookie), a better, more balanced, and reliable age mix of rucks in my opinion, than we currently have. A good mobile can also help cover tall deficiencies elsewhere… so a good investment overall. So, three rucks total… the same composition as Collingwood, Geelong and lots of other clubs… not TWO MORE than everyone else…
You keeping up, or is this Year 1 level maths too much?
So, with this ruck set up, Draper gets more time to develop, (important for a 20 yo tall coming from another sport) and a Preuss-type ruck that becomes good long term cover for Belly and Draper for many years - good result all round. Daniher is injured, and is not ‘pure’ ruck… your term and criteria for this discussion, not mine. You and others can disagree, that’s fine, but lying about what I actually said? Gaslighting. Argue in good faith or rack off.
Yeah, it would be, if I’d said it.
And finally, let’s look at a small selection of teams that have at least one ruck between 23 and 28, i.e. my supposedly farking outlandish suggestion…
Melb - Preuss 24, Gawn 27
Pies - Grundy 25,
Port - Lycett 26
WC - Hickey 28
Crows - Obrien 24
Geelong - Fort 26
Rich - Nankervis 24
I’ve only listed a handful, but what’s clear is lots of good teams think having a 23 to 28 yo ruckman is a good idea. But if I suggest it, well… you become apoplectic, like a toddler.
Because with age comes experience and better decision-making… with too much age comes increased risk of injury and decreased physical performance. There is an age bracket where athletes tend to perform at their best for longer. Man, this is just common knowledge - how naive must you be for this to be news to you?
Now I’m sure you’ll still find some twisted logic, provide misquotations etc. to try argue that all of this is still a horrible idea - can’t wait for that absolute word-salad of a post.
Listen Ants, it’s ok to disagree with my posts. But yours are just full of lies and deliberate misrepresentations. Why you feel the need to lie and get abusive, I don’t know… but I don’t care and I’m now inclined to dish out some abuse myself.
You have the same ability to formulate a coherent argument as that of an 8 year old… But you go your hardest with your comeback…it’ll make as much sense and be based on as much reality and maturity as all your other rubbish posts. Also, please include some more justifications along the lines of ‘I said it so therefore it must be true’ because I find those particularly amusing.
Agree with this so much. I’d even go further he’s probably 4th if you include Daniher.
3 season ending injuries to rucks can’t be planned for.
Belly is 30 with a history of injury. When was the last time he rucked a full year?
Daniher was out all last year with the same injury he has now.
I’d argue that too much expectation was placed in Draper this year. Hes only played the game for 3 years and is still learning how to protect himself from injury in AFL, takes time
The first two could definitely have had some better risk mitigation put in place than Gown and Clarke.
Going into a season with 1 established AFL standard ruck is absolutely what we planned & executed. JD should never ever have been a consideration for anything but minimal relief ruck duties even if they had have gotten him fit & Drapper has not played any senior AFL football bar a cameo JLT appearance. Clarke is our second ruck option - thats the reality. Smack is simply not capable of carrying the ruck for full games & gets completely outclassed. He, like JD is a forward who can pinch hit because he has leap. We desperately needed another genuine ruck & Clarke was possibly the best option we could find at that point. What concerns me more about our ruck dept is that at the mid season draft it was clear we were running on fumes. Clarke in his senior appearances had been underwhelming, Drapper was gone for the year, Smack was needed forward full time & Belly had looked sticky taped together since round 1. Why didn’t we draft a ruckman from the state leagues? I don’t watch enough WAFL/SANFL etc to make a specific suggestion but it was looking pretty obvious that we were a Belly knock away from a bare cupboard. Again I see this as yet another example of poor list management - we had a free hit to get another ruck on the list & passed it up.
We had Leuy as back up for TBell and to allow Draper to develop. Leuy retired (which I do not think they banked on happening this year) so we brought in Clarke to do the same thing. We had planned on taking a ruck in the so called mid-season draft but that option was taken away from us by Sydney and we didn’t think anyone else was worth it for whatever reason.
They also count on Smack, Hooker and Brown to ruck (and Daniher, which I think isn’t helping his OP stuff).
We do need one more AFL standard backup ruckman (I agree with you on that score) so I imagine at seasons end they will cover that option off. We really should have taken one mid-season just to see what they might have offered playing VFL if nothing else.
Sydney swans took our ruckman
Damn it
Work is crazy, so I’ll respond to the rest of this when I can.
Just wanted to say I want to concede it looks like I was wrong on this bit. You were using the term correctly, and I was applying a layman’s understanding of the term.
I do still think changing your draft strategy because a key player had one family member have OP is … very odd.
My criticism has been our use of the rookie list. I think we’ve missed several opportunities to get players in by persisting with the downgrade strategy. Dea last season and players like Aylett, Eades, Hams etc in the past. Players that we’ve had on the primary list and retained/redrafted as a rookie. Draper is a good pick. Walla was a good pick, McKernan a handy pick but we’ve poor at adding talent overlooked in the main drafts. I was big on adding Stack last year but we went with Dea who’s a great clubman and serviceable depth player but ultimately someone who’s not taking us forward. Remember when we used the rookie list to bring in players like Dean Rioli, Mark Johnson, Damien Peverill, Hocking, Baguley, Lovett, NLM, Howlety etc? I just don’t see enough of that now and it’s an opportunity I feel we’re not making great use of at the moment.
For whatever reason, every club, not just us, are going down this path.
17 players taken after Dea in the main rookie draft - 12 of them retreads (total 9 games), 5 new guys (total 0 games).
Even in the supp draft, 8 retreads of a total of 15.
I’m not sure if there’s been changes to the minimum restrictions on contracts, but clubs are staying away from 18 year olds in the rookie draft.
Stack’s the only one who’s really had any impact (Gibbons has played a fair few but doesn’t look great IMO)
FWIW we’re still getting around 1 good rookie every 2 years or so (Draper looks the goods, Tippa, Conor, Ambo, Bags, JJenkins etc).
We just used to take 3-4 new picks, now we’re only taking 1-2.
There are some good points and poorer points in here.
Firstly, I do think you have to be careful with how you compare the periods. The guys you listed as successes came from over a decade of drafts (2007=>2011), given we’ve got Draper and Walla out of the 2015 to 2018 drafts, the strike rate isn’t particularly different (and hopefully Mynott turns out to be gold).
Second, some of those guys weren’t eligible to be delisted, as they were still contracted. The only impact of moving them to the rookie list was to move a draft pick from the rookie draft to the national draft. So that was more a list administration thing rather than a drafting decision.
Finally, I agree we sometimes keep players too long (although I’d have kept Dea). However, who is making that decision? I would have thought when it comes to contracted players, that would be the coaches. Surely it isn’t Dodorro making decisions on Long and Dea, but Worsfold?
It’s a committee: footy manager, one or two coaches, and list manager
Thanks, I suspected it was something like that (put Worsfold because I was trying to be quick).
That composition makes sense - it is (and should be) dominated by the coaches who should have the clearest view of what they expect the player to become, and how they fit their needs. But the list manager should be giving input, both about what the alternative options are, and any restraints (contract and cap space).
It’s called depth.
If he was best 22 he’d be more than serviceable, he’s not, and our backline (unlike our forward line) is set and (mostly) on the park. With Redman, Francis and Ridley coming on you’d have to think he’ll be stuck in the magoos indefinitely barring injuries. I’m ok with this.
Have a look at history and what has happened to EFC when their seconds win the final series.
#DepthEvenyourmumlikesit.