The last ten premiership sides enjoy some very similar traits.
In most cases they are one of the best teams in the league in terms of winning and maintaining possession. This ball winning ability enables them to score heavily while also limiting the number of entries into their defensive fifty that they give up.
What these sides don’t display is any trend of ruck superiority by the way of hit-out dominance over their opponents. Premiership teams in this period have been just as likely to finish in the bottom half as the top half of league hit-out rankings and none of them have finished higher than third in this category.
Given that there is no strong correlation between the numbers of hit-outs won and team success, it would seem clear that a ruckmen must be able to add significantly in traditionally non-core ruck activities.
The criteria to measure this would include a ruckman’s ability to improve their side in at least one of the following areas: (1) midfield depth and running capacity, (2) defensive rebounding and intercept marking prowess, or (3) ability to provide an around the grounds marking or forward fifty scoring option that doesn’t allow opponents easy rebounding opportunities when the ball is turned over.
Measured against this criteria, the ruckman from Round 9 teams (as well Round 8 Port Adelaide and Gold Coast teams) that don’t contribute consistently enough in these areas to continue warrant selection are: Shane Mumford (GWS), Sam Jacobs (Adelaide), Zac Smith (Geelong), Billy Longer (St Kilda), Toby Nankervis (Richmond), Matthew Leunberger (Essendon), Nathan Vardy (WCE), Aaron Sandilands (Fremantle) and Jarrod Witts (Gold Coast Suns).
(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
The nine clubs these players represent would be better served by looking at alternative ruck options – options that are more aligned with improving key performance metrics that have a stronger correlation with success.
Melbourne’s Cameron Pedersen is the poster boy for the new look ruckman. Standing at a relatively short 193 centimetres his career to this points has been that of a journeymen and somewhat accidental ruckman.
Although Pedersen might not look like the traditional AFL ruckman and lose the hit-out count more often that he wins it (and in most cases comprehensively), his overall impact as both a goal scorer and around the ground marking option more than compensates.
Also importantly, Pedersen as a third tall forward as opposed to a ruckman, is relatively cheaper than many current first choice ruckman, meaning funds can be better spent on players whose performances will more directly relate to wins for your club.
One might be at first considered crazy, for suggesting you would take Pedersen over a four-time All-Australian in Aaron Sandilands as your first choice ruck, but if a vote for Pedersen also meant you could afford to attract an additional player to your club, one of a good to very good standard, be they a contested possession player or a running half back with great foot skills – the choice in the today’s AFL is an easy one.
The AFL has long prided itself of being a game for all shapes and sizes, if this is to continue and for there to be a place for taller players in the game there will need to be a rule change.
Of the rule changes currently being trialled in pre-season or feeder competitions, the only one that would seem to have the potential to be a saviour for the taller player is the concept of zones. Whereby, at all times, teams must maintain a minimum number of players inside their forward and defensive 50 metre areas.
In a game where the ability to run off a taller opponent inside the forward fifty is limited, and thus the aerobic requirement on a forward is less, there is a stronger case for the inclusion of a taller marking options. Without such a rule change the days of each team selecting a traditional AFL ruckmen are numbered if not already gone.
Don Freo
Guest
Sandilands, Ballantyne, Bennell, Balic, Langdon, Pearce and Apeness (who would be picked ahead of Kersten).
Jon boy
Guest
Don. Who are the 7 that are out injured. I can think of A.Pearce and H. Bennell who sadly looks to have a career ending injury and other issues I hope i am wrong
Don Freo
Guest
Nah we went for Logue, Darcy and Cox who will all be 250 game guns. Very happy with that lot. Powell-Pepper is good but we only got one draft pick per round.
Powerboy
Guest
Yeah, right....... Without peers.... Ho ho ho. Get ready for the peerless Freo midfield to meet a few superiors this weekend. Honestly fella, even if your peerless midfield do get the ball into your fifty, it will quickly rebound after being snuffed and sent down the throat of forwards you lot can only dream of. Go on Don.....tell me "Ballas" craps on Eddie......... BTW....how did you lot miss Powell-Pepper? He was right under your nose. Gonna tell me about the Freo bring them home campaign next........
Don Freo
Guest
If you are calling Mundy "over the hill", that sums up your footy knowledge. Dawson is playing at full forward at Peel. Not in this side. Johnson, Hambling, Kersten are not small. Pearce is only depth now until the 7 top 22 players that are out injured are back. The game centres around Fyfe, Mundy, Hill, Hill, Neale, Walters, Blakely...a midfield without peer in the comp.
Powerboy
Guest
No anger here, fella.... Mild amusement at your lack of critical thinking when it comes to the giraffe, the pygmy and others at Fremantle. As you keep insisting, Freo's game seems to be built around Sandilands....ergo, if he is not there....there goes plan A. As I said, where is the versatility within your team. Sandilands - ruckman only (certainly not a key tall down the spine), Ballas - a forward pest who can barely get past 30 goals a season and is lost outside the arc, Dawson, Pearce, Mundy & Griffin - over the hill and, finally, BENNELL the basket case. Then we get the Don Freo praise of the recruitment department on the back of decisions like Sylvia and others who never even made it onto the paddock. Please, take off those violet tinted glasses and give us all a break.
Don Freo
Guest
"Sanctified" is not quite the right word...but it was a good try. You seem to contradict yourself where you argue that Sandi is past it but that Freo can't win without him. The strangest thing about your post is your anger. Why? It's sport...one of the most joyful things on the planet. Maybe you should change your allegiance to Freo. Footy is joyful in purple.
Powerboy
Guest
It's a pity you spend so much time gazing at your heroes, Don Freo. The game has moved on over the last few years and you don't seem to have noticed that other teams, and importantly, other coaches have come up with strategies to counter predictable set pieces and plays. I suggest you have a look at more than one game a week and get over your fixation with defending all things Freo. The most important attribute sought by coaches these days is versatility. We'll see how versatile Freo really are this week without the sanctified Sandilands. Methinks that without a ruckman of any note your mob will be left clueless at ball up's and a blowout is very much on the cards.... Good luck with that percentage. Oh, and by the way, I can think of only two coaches that have consistently selected Sandilands - Lyon and Harvey.
BillyW
Guest
Fair enough mate....we'll agree to disagree...Good luck with your next piece!
Jack Dyer
Roar Rookie
All good challenges Billy (expect perhaps #3 but will get to that): 1. I would say the central theme of the article is that ruckman don't contribute significantly in the areas that more directly translate to winning matches. As such, I put forward the position that you are better to go with a part time ruckmen that adds to you significantly in other areas as even though you might lose out in some areas you will more than compensate in others areas, One might say Paddy Ryder was/is a part-timer, because at Essendon he was more often than not he was used as a forward. When he was recruited to Port it was reported in the media that he would be back up to Lobbe second forward option (whether internally that was actually the case or not is another matter). Your club quickly saw the light and Lobbe was off to the SANFL. I bet someone in the front office regrets that 4 year contract. 2. Of the list I put forward you would imagine Jacobs, Sandi and Mumford are in the top 10. I would see Mumford with a fit and full list at GWS as the most in danger of maintaining his spot but believe Adelaide could drop Jacobs and not miss a beat but will get to that later . For the Giants there is already so much talk that a forward line of Patton / Cameron / Lobb is too tall. Do they really lose that much if Mummy goes out especially, if say, that meant a fit and firing Deledio came in and Lobb was first ruck? Just because the Channel 7 commentators like him because they like to use phrases like the 'big mummy', and BT gets riled up every time he lays a tackle it doesn't mean he adds value in that areas that leads to winning matches. 3. Hahaha Billy you lose me here, the 'staff writers' at afl.com as a supporting reference, I would rather use Leigh Matthews as a supporting reference - and he has been saying the same things for quite some time (google 'leigh matthews aaron sandilands'). Plus as I pointed out in other comments most clubs are already there in this thinking, Mumford was traded out of the Swans as they were happy to rely on Mike Pyke, people will use terms like squeezed out but if they really wanted him they would have worked it out. I think AFL journo's do a great job, we all have opinions and is great to talk about the game we love but paid journo's can make mistakes too, or be very unoriginal. Check out my first article from this year, I pointed out that at the start of the season that 17 of the 17 AFL staff at the Herald-Sun in Victoria had put forward some top 8 combinations that would have required a turn of events that had never been seen before in the history of the AFL top 8 system. I called it then, 2 weeks after my piece the senior AFL journalist from The Age in Melbourne penned an article with remarkable similarities to some of the points I raised, given he has been writing for well over 20 years and had never raised these points prior I found it interesting (not suggesting plagiarism in the slightest but you don't have to be a journo to come up with innovative thought and perhaps it hinders you) . . I don't come with in a bulls roar of any of them as a writer but happily put my ability to analyse a problem up against them. If I was going to have to challenge, the collective minds of the staff writers at the afl.com here would some of my thoughts on just their first team: Adelaide: If Jacobs doesn't play, you start Ottens or Jenkins in the ruck and then rotate with the other. You bring in another outsider runner, or give an extended go to someone like Menzel, who yes hasn't show much at Adelaide yet but was a promising young player at the Blues. I would ask you this Billy at what point would you change your tip from backing Adelaide to backing their opponent if Jacobs was out and the combination of players I talked about was in? Would you even change your tip at all? Roar Pro, Ryan Buckland, or one of his types, would use a fancy word like elasticity to describe that situation, but I bet all the money in my pockets versus all the money in your pockets, that you would be changing your tip a lot sooner if it was a Sloane who was missing, or the unnamed Betts (how is he the best small forward in the game not in top 3) or Talia. 4. I would tend to look at Pedersen v Wiits when both have been used as front line ruckmen, and the impact on their teams. Pedersen numbers here added with his ability to win games of footy with goals too much. My final comment on this piece is that AFL is a great game, it is a unique game, but the sport doesn't act in a vacuum. Zones, flooding, scrums have all come from other sports and changed 100's of years of prior thinking . . in the world of team sports there has been a move towards all the players to be of the very similar shape and size - basketball, rugby codes etc, AFL is unique in many ways but what makes our game think this trend will not hit us? Over and out and onto the next piece.
BillyW
Roar Rookie
1) Your article was about clubs getting rid of the best ruckmen not spending money for one. 2) How many in your list would be in the top 10 paid at their club? 3) A plan B aricle on AFL.com picks the their Top 3 most important players from each club and the back up plan if one went down....no less than 9 had their ruckmen in it! 4) Your example of the new age cheap ruckmen has a career disposal average of 13 with just under 4 marks I looked at Witts as he's probable the least likely out of the names you mentioned and he has 10 disposals 2.5 marks.....so 3 hit out to advantage in his 20 odd hitouts and he has contributed just as much to the possession count as the part timer....... Hmmm......Give me the pro Ruck anytime!
Don Freo
Guest
I've seen them all and played over 750 games including Juniors and veterans. Sooo...go figure. That never makes an argument compelling.
dontknowmuchaboutfootball
Guest
Maybe Sandi just fell over, and unintentionally, as powerboy insists. But it's his uncanny ability to "unintentionally" "fall over" at just the right moment, and in just the right way, so as to effect a shepherd, spoil a handball, scoop up a groundball, etc. — time and time again — that makes him an invaluable inclusion in the side.
Jon boy
Guest
Don I am a inaugural member of freo and have been to 90% of home games since 1995 been to freo games in Tasmania, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and GF. I don't like singling out Sandi or Balla but thats my constructive criticism based on facts and statistics. So i have watched probably more games than you and I have played over 300 games so maybe i am like Hayden passed it.
Don Freo
Guest
So, you would be thinking then that Dusty just gave up on tackling Neale? He just couldn't get past a mobile and nimble Sandi. Sandi kept his feet. I doubt you really support Freo with your assessment of Sandi and Ballas. There's a difference between supporting a team and naming one that you barrack for. You'd need to watch more. Do you ever wonder why he has so many AA selections? Do you wonder how coaches that know footy have picked him for so many games of AFL?
Jon boy
Guest
Powerboy Spot on i just watched the replay Sandi did fall over no influence on the clearance I am a fan of Freo but i do think he is the most Overated player in the League. Averages just over 2 marks per game terrible for someone so tall . He is a good kick but regularly turns the ball over by hand Opposition rucks run off him to easily Marks and Goels inside 50 are non existent over all his years
Don Freo
Guest
How much salary cap space do you think he is taking? He came off the rookie list and just operates now on a year to year contract. Freo has very comfortable salary cap flexibility. It's not as if he is being paid Tippett or Boyd money. These 2, by the way, are a lot less effective for their teams than Sandi is for Freo. They are struggling as both ruckmen and key forwards.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
Watching Freo closely Sandi is pivotal We saw how great he was when Fyfe was flying in 2015 (and I have a sneaky suspicion we'll see that again later in the year). I reckon Sandi brings enough to the table for whatever he earns and he's a great team man too apparently, so I'm sure he'd be one to help the club balance out the cap requirements if needed.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
The Swans would've loved to keep Mumford and probably backed themselves to, but Buddy basically fell in their laps and they couldn't resist that one. I'd be amazed if Pyke rucked the majority of the day at that stage of his career, so I severely doubt that, but I'd need to check.
HoundDog
Guest
Haha, yeh Lobb v Jacobs would probably work for the Giants. I don't agree with all the ruckmen that you have nominated, eg I reckon Nankervis has been great for the Tigers and I don't see who their smaller, more mobile option would be? However the Giants should definitely try Lobb as #1 ruck sometime this season, probably when they have a fitter list to choose from.