How much influence are ruckmen really having?

Hugh M. Excellent, couldn't agree more with all you said. Jamar was missing on Saturday, so Goldstein ends up with 2, maybe 3, votes. Thats according to the radio on the day, tv that night and the Sunday paper.

I suspect that you are wrong for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is always a place for a skillful tall player in our game - there aren't many short key position players. I don't think you can honestly argue that Jamar, Cox, Sandilands, Jolly or Mumford are not significant assets to their respective teams. Secondly, if their were any benefit to be had by dispensing with them I am sure some enterprising coach would have done so before now. (Short lived experiments with players such as Adam Goodes and Jared Brennan come to mind here.) I suspect that as with every other position on the field, they will simply become more skillful and more athletic. An interesting corollary to this proposition is the recent re-emergence of the 'small man' in the game (Blair, Milne, Betts, Ballantyne etc), even at a time when gun midfielders seem typically to be over 6' in the old money.

Guys, As a Crows man it pains me but those who saw Jamar's complete and total demolition of the Adelaide rucks in the recent game will know what I'm saying. Melbourne took the ball away from any bounce, particularly those in the centre square, with such ease it was embarrassing. Moloney should definitely buy Jamar something nice for his birthday because Moloney thought it was HIS birthday on Sunday. I like to think the Adelaide boys didn't really compete or get dirty because they were due at Mum's place that night for Mother's Day dinner and didn't want to be bruised or covered in grass stains. I think that's nice. Mind you, I'm still trying to work out how a team can be a couple of goals down at half time, playing as badly as they were, and then get beaten by 96 points in virtually a half of footy. I hope Craigy knows!

I saw some highlights tonight of Jamar hitting Maloney up with a few hit outs, straight out of the centre, clean as a whistle - game over. But as I said a couple of times already, that it kept on happening all game means a failing of either in the coach's box or with the playing personnel not following instructions, or maybe Adelaide just didn't have a run -with player to do the job on the day.

In the Ess v West Coast game, the ruck work was critical to clearances in the first half by West Coast. Naitinui in particular did some excellent tap work.

This is also probably just as noticeable at Carlton, where Warnock is the key ruckman, and when he's off, the carlton onball brigade have to work harder to get the ball. Hampson has been ok, but he's not Kreuzer, and Kreuzer is most definitely one of those "oh Ill tap it and then get it myself if I have to" ruckmen.

I used to play in the ruck in the under u17s and remember my coach saying a ruckmens job is to just break even and stop the other ruck from domating.

Yes, I agree it's not all that common, because coaches set up their structures and match ups to make sure it's not common. If a ruckman hit a particular rover on the chest two occasions in the first quarter - by the end of that first quarter, the coaching staff would have rejigged things, got instructions out, to make sure it didn't happen again, or at least reduce the risk significantly. But this is part of the story, coaches have to worry about what's happening at the clearances and they definitely have to worry about any ruckman getting hit outs that lead directly to clearances.

I certainly won't try and argue with that, I don't really see the game through the stats lens, I know many do and I respect that. But I do see a contest where two blokes leap at a ball, all legs and knees and either one bloke gets a tap, or they both slap at the ball and it spills out somewhere or other, but in general the result is pretty indeterminate. There's so many players around the ball that even if the tap is in the general direction of the desired team mate, it's also in the general direction of an opposition player or two and so is as likely as not to be taken by the opposition as by the team mate. And of course maybe my eye isn't as keen as others and I'm missing this huge influence these guys have. But what also interests me is the absolute frenzy that commentators go into when you do actually see a clean, intentional tap to advantage. Nick Nat was a recent example. The tap was clearly straight to his own man and the commentators went mental...interesting thing is, if it happened all the time they wouldnt have gone mental. But it happens very rarely...they actually saw a ruckman do what a ruckman is supposed to do in the text books and they went postal about the whole affair.

That's a classic example of something I touched on in an earlier post. Once the tap outs result in quality clearances (players running into space with time to measure their kicks), it's game over. 40 hit outs and 19 clearances to one player - you can't argue with that.

You make some good points, Alfred. I would, however, like to point out that ruckmen that don't get a lot of the ball can still have a huge impact on a game. Look at Mark Jamar for instance. He gets about two kicks a game and those kicks usually land in the opponent's hand. But watch him go at it in the centre circle and the value of the ruckman immediately becomes apparent. Admittedly, today's slaughter-fest of the Crows was an exaggerated example, but Jamar consistently tapped it into the perfect space for Brent Moloney. Jamar had 40 hitouts, Moloney 19 clearances. It's no surprises the Dees won by 96 points. Furthermore, whenever Lynden Dunn went in to relieve Jamar, Adelaide noticeably won a lot more of the ball. True, the value of a good ruckman these days is getting smaller and smaller. But when you put an elite ruckman with an elite midfielder, you get amazing results.

Look at St. Kilda this year. They are without Gardiner. He had the 3rd best to advantage ratio, was very high in ruck standings for all of disposals, marks and goals. He also had a large tank, and got around quickly with his waddle. Now, with McEvoy, a young, non-tap ruckman. He's very slow. He's a very good Mark and extremely clean below his feet. But St kilda continually lose clearances because he can't direct the ball down. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

Brownlow medallist, Scott Wynd, was a big, slow, lumbering ruckman who own a brownlow medal in 1992. In his younger years, he was quite adept at taking a strong overhead mark, especially a kick behind the play as Gary Dempsey used to do so well in the 70s (another brownlow medalist). However, in his later years, he took very few marks but remained every bit as valuable. Why? Well, counter-intuitively, despite his gangly height and slowness around the ground, be became very important in contested possessions, either gathering them himself or helping his midfielders gather them, almost harking back to the original role of the ruckman, when the term first game into use in the earlierst years of the game. The thing is, if you have a solid 6ft 7in ruckman, regardless of how slow and gangly he is, if he's got his body over the ball, either he's going to win it, or most definitely, he's going to stop the opposition from winning it. Tall blokes weigh a lot - the little blokes are zippier out in the open, but in the trenches - give me the big blokes to win the footy. You can't carry more than one such bloke in your 21, I think that's correct, but you'd be crazy to try and play a whole season without one.

Some points in response: 1. More often than not, you are getting two blokes contesting who are tall and have a bit of an idea about what they are doing, it's not surprising that only one in ten tap outs makes their mark because they will invariably neutralise each other. 2. Where one of the ruckmen actually gets on top the other, and, say, three tap outs out of every 10 are hitting the mark, and result in a clean clearance - that almost equates to game over in the modern game. 3. It is true that coaches can set up their ball ups and throw ins to negate the opposition where the opposition ruckman is on top, and in fact, that happens regularly. But once again, if you have the better ruckman, it's something the opposition has to focus on and put a fair bit of effort into their planning, and that's no bad thing because it might detract from their usual game plan.

We seem to have agreement on this thread which surprises me. I've been saying this since the eighties and have been meeting with suggestions of my insanity ever since. Yes the game has changed now to the point where this is more evident, but the ruck contest has been a game of chance for as long as I've been watching footy...and if you accept that, then any honest analysis of a ruckmans worth has always boiled down to the marks they take around the ground. And I still say, that even in eighties football, that they were too slow, too gangly and too uncoordinated. Marks around the ground, great, but when you can't spear a pass onto a team mates chest or turn on a dime and snap a goal from 50m, you're taking up the position of someone who can.

Current ruckmen MUST be able to take marks - big marks, with a bonus when they are taken at critical times in a game. The days of the old time tap ruckman should be over - though Sandilands is one out of the box due to his huge height advantage.

I reckon they take I away from the appearance of the game as well. They've always looked uncoordinated to me. It stands out amongst the rest of the positions which are becoming super athletes with super fine skills.

I agree - the traditional ruckman these days reminds me of drummers in ( second rate ? ) live rock bands ! - you really are aware of their presence, but they add nothing to the overall performance.